LD  POWER 

:•  THE  EMPIRE  OF  CHRIST  :• 


.  JOHN    MacNEILL 


BX  6333 

.M3664 

W6 

1914 

MacNei 

11 

,  John 

James , 

1874 

1937. 

World 

power 

WORLD    POWER: 

THE  EMPIRE  of  CHRIST 


WORLD  POWER: 

THE  EMPIRE.;/' CHRIST 


JOHN  MacNEILL     "^/^ 

Minister,  Walmer  Road  Baptist  Church,  Toronto 


HODDER   &  STOUGHTON 

NEW  YORK 

GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


COPTBIGHT,  1914,  BT 

GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


TO  THE  MEMBERS  OP  THE 

WALMER  ROAD  BAPTIST  CHURCH,  TORONTO 

WHOSE     AFFECTION,     LOYALTY     AND     COURAGE 

HAVE  BROUGHT  ME  UNCEASING  COMFORT  AND  INSPIRATION 

IN  OUR  WARFARE  OF  THE  GOSPEL 


PREFACE 

The  sermons  contained  in  this  volume  were  suggested 
by  various  phases  of  the  events  leading  up  to  the  present 
war.  At  least  two  sudden  revelations  have  been  made  to 
the  popular  mind  by  this  crisis  in  our  civilization.  It 
has  served  on  the  one  hand  to  reveal  many  baneful  ten- 
dencies of  our  modern  society,  and  on  the  other  hand  to 
uncover  afresh  some  of  the  eternal  principles  of  Chris- 
tianity. It  occurred  to  the  preacher  that  the  modern 
spirit  is  expressed  in  some  of  the  now  famous  phrases  of 
individuals  and  nations  and  over  against  each  phrase  is 
some  great  Divine  truth  that  answers  to  it.  Each  ser- 
mon is  the  attempt  to  bring  the  light  of  Christ's  teaching 
to  bear  upon  some  certain  feature  of  the  present  hour. 
No  one  realizes  more  than  the  author  that  he  is  dealing 
with  only  a  passing  phase  of  national  life.  What  is  said 
here  of  Germany  applies  only  to  the  Germany  of  to-day, 
and  what  is  said  of  the  Germany  of  to-day  might  have 
to  be  said  of  the  Russia,  or  France  or  Britain  of  to- 
morrow. In  that  sense  the  messages  are  momentary  and 
incidental.  There  is  no  pretence  to  any  comprehensive 
study  of  the  relation  of  Christianity  to  the  war  in  all 
its  bearings,  nor  is  there  any  endeavor  to  interpret  these 
events  of  history  in  the  light  of  Scripture  prophecy. 
The  chief  aim  was  to  emphasize,  with  the  war  as  a 
background,  some  of  the  eternal  truths  that  abide 
through  all  the  shocks  of  change,  to  fix  upon  the  public 

5 


6  PREFACE 

and  individual  mind  a  new  sense  of  responsibility,  and 
to  point  the  way  to  comfort  and  hope. 

Shattering  the  Nest  was  preached  in  the  City  Tem- 
ple, London,  England,  on  Sunday  morning,  August  ninth, 
the  Sunday  following  Britain's  entrance  into  the  war. 
It  was  repeated  to  my  own  congregation  on  my  return 
from  England  in  September.  The  other  sermons  were 
delivered  in  the  regular  course  of  my  ministry  in  Wal- 
mer  Road  Church  on  the  nine  successive  Sunday  even- 
ings of  October  and  November.  They  were  prepared 
from  week  to  week,  amid  the  pressing  duties  of  a  heavy 
pastorate.  They  are  essentially  spoken  sermons,  follow- 
ing the  extemporaneous  method,  and  they  are  printed  as 
they  were  spoken.  In  response  to  the  wishes  of  my 
congregation  each  sermon  was  published  in  pamphlet 
form  on  the  week  following  its  delivery.  These  pam- 
phlets have  been  gathered  into  this  volume,  with  no 
attempt  to  rewrite  them  and  little  attempt  to  revise. 
While  bearing  in  consequence  many  marks  of  literary 
imperfection  they  retain  the  form  of  direct  spoken  coun- 
sels and  evangelistic  appeals.  They  were  graciously 
blessed  by  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  conversion  of  men  and 
women  and  they  are  sent  out  in  this  form  only  with  the 
hope  that  they  may  prove  of  further  blessing  to  a  wider 
congregation. 

John  MacNeill. 

Walmer  Road  Baptist  Church, 
Toronto. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER    I 

PAGE 

World  Power:   The  Empire  of  Christ    ...        11 

CHAPTER   II 
Shattering  the  Nest 31 

CHAPTER    III 

Alliance  and  Entente:  The  Solidarity  of  the 

Race 55 

CHAPTER    IV 
A  Place  in  the  Sun  :   The  God  of  History  .      .        73 

CHAPTER   V 
The  Day!   The  Day!    The  Nemesis  of  Justice       93 

CHAPTER    VI 

A  Scrap  of  Paper:  The  Morality  of  Nations  113 

7 


8  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   VII 

PAGE 

Blood  and  Iron:    The  Immorality  of  Militar- 
ism       o      135 

CHAPTER    VIII 

Treason  to  Culture:  The  Marks  of  Progress       153 

CHAPTER    IX 
Peace  with  Honor:  The  Foundations  of  Peace       171 

CHAPTER   X 
To  a  Finish:  The  Brotherhood  of  Man     .      .        191 


WORLD  POWER:  THE  EMPIRE  OF 
CHRIST 


WORLD  POWER:  THE  EMPIRE  OF 
CHRIST 

Text: — "And  it  came  to  pass  in  those  days  that  there 
went  out  a  decree  from  Ccesar  Augustus  that  all  the 
world  should  be  taxed." 

"And  it  came  to  pass  that  the  days  were  accomplished 
that  she  should  be  delivered.  And  she  brought  forth  her 
firstborn  son,  and  wrapped  him  in  swaddling  clothes  and 
laid  him,  in  a  manger." — St.  Luke  2:1,  6,  7. 

Placed  thus  in  contrast,  these  two  passages 
reveal  a  wide  difference  in  spirit,  but  they  un- 
cover the  same  great  ambition  springing  from 
the  opposite  poles  of  the  spiritual  world.  They 
are  as  far  apart  as  the  universe  in  motive  and 
method,  but  hidden  away  in  each  is  the  same 
daring  ideal  of  the  universal  sway  over  men. 
Over  there  in  Rome  the  dream  of  world  power 
was  floating  in  the  mind  of  Caesar;  over  yonder 
in  Bethlehem  the  dream  of  world  empire  was 
imbedded  in  the  brain  of  an  unconscious  child. 
It  was  the  beginning  of  a  struggle  for  the 
mastery  of  the  race.    In  those  two  figures — the 

11 


12  WORLD  POWER 

Cgesar  and  the  Christ — there  are  the  potential 
rulers  of  mankind.  The  one  is  the  incarnation 
of  force;  the  other  is  the  incarnation  of  faith. 
The  weapon  of  the  one  is  the  sword;  the 
weapon  of  the  other  is  the  cross.  It  is  the  car- 
nal against  the  spiritual,  and  with  breathless 
interest  the  ages  watch  what  the  end  will  be. 

Let  us  glance  for  a  moment  at  these  two  as- 
pirants for  world  power.  On  the  one  hand  was 
Csesar,  with  countless  legions,  unbending  laws, 
relentless  organization  and  ruthless  power. 
Wherever  he  will  go  the  garments  of  the  na- 
tions are  rolled  in  blood.  The  only  crown  he  is 
ambitious  to  wear  is  a  helmet ;  the  only  sceptre, 
a  sword  within  his  hand.  Throughout  all  the 
ages  the  symbols  of  his  power  will  be  the  reek- 
ing spear  and  smoking  cannon;  the  pillaged 
cities  and  wasted  lands;  the  slaughtered  chil- 
dren and  outraged  women ;  the  laws  that  crush 
the  very  liberties  out  of  the  hearts  of  the  free, 
and  the  taxes  that  drain  the  very  blood  out  of 
the  veins  of  the  poor.  And  over  against  that 
figure  there  moves  another  to  dispute  his  sway. 
At  Bethlehem  it  might  be  said  that  God 
crossed  the  border  into  the  territory  of  human 
life.    He  had  mobilized  all  the  forces  of  the 


WORLD  POWER  13 

spiritual  universe  in  Christ.  The  incarnation 
of  Jesus  was  the  invasion  of  humanity.  It  was 
the  declaration  of  war.  There  was  no  blast 
of  trumpet,  no  clash  of  sword,  no  flaunting 
of  banner,  no  pomp  and  circumstance  of  war. 
No  sound  indeed  was  heard  except  the  croon- 
ing of  a  mother  as  she  sang  her  lullaby  to  the 
Infant  at  her  breast.  He  will  wear  no  royal 
purple ;  His  robes  will  be  the  simple  garments 
of  a  peasant.  The  only  crown  upon  His  head 
will  be  a  crown  of  thorns;  the  only  sceptre,  a 
nail  print  in  His  hand.  Throughout  all  the 
ages  the  symbols  of  His  power  will  be  love 
and  peace,  gentleness  and  meekness,  sacrifice 
and  brotherhood  and  faith.  He  would  not 
be  anointed  to  sit  upon  any  earthly  throne,  but 
He  would  be  "anointed  to  preach  the  gospel 
to  the  poor";  He  would  be  "sent  to  bind  up 
the  broken-hearted,  to  proclaim  liberty  to  the 
captive,  and  the  opening  of  the  prison  to  them 
that  are  bound;  to  proclaim  the  acceptable  year 
of  the  Lord,  and  the  day  of  vengeance  of  our 
God." 

And  there  they  stand,  the  one  against  the 
other.  It  is  the  dimpled  hand  of  the  child 
against  the  mailed  fist  of  the  warrior.    It  may 


14  WORLD  POWER 

look  like  a  hopeless  task  for  the  child,  but  we 
shall  see!  we  shall  see!  I  know  the  pink  and 
dimpled  hand  of  the  baby  looks  helpless  on 
His  mother's  breast,  but  we  are  here  to  recall 
the  fact  to-night  that  this  is  the  Hand  that 
has  thrown  down  the  gauntlet  to  Cassar  in 
every  age;  that  has  challenged  the  march  of 
brute  force  across  the  fields  of  time;  that  cut 
the  sinews  of  Roman  supremacy  and  changed 
the  currents  of  history  for  all  the  generations 
to  come. 

The  Dream  of  World  Power  by  C^sar 

I  have  emphasized  this  contrast  because  it  is 
apparent  that  it  is  this  old  world  dream  of 
Caesar  that  has  precipitated  the  great  strug- 
gle in  which  all  Europe  is  engaged  at  the  pres- 
ent time.  You  are  well  aware  that  for  the  past 
thirty  years  these  phrases,  "v/orld  power," 
"world  influence,"  "world  domination,"  in  one 
nation  at  least,  have  passed  from  lip  to  lip 
and  from  group  to  group  until  men  have 
visioned,  not  perhaps  the  actual  ownership, 
but  at  least  the  actual  domination  of  Europe 
and,  through  Europe,  the  domination  of  the 
world. 


WORLD  POWER  15 

It  would  be  interesting  and  illuminating  did 
time  permit  to  see  how  at  steady  intervals  all 
through  the  centuries  that  idea  has  arisen  to 
assert  itself  in  the  world.  Long  before  the 
Christian  era  it  made  its  appearance  in  Baby- 
lon, Carthage,  Assyria,  Persia,  Egypt.  But 
glance  at  the  past  1,900  years  in  Europe  alone 
and  you  will  see  how  again  and  again  in  the 
brain  of  a  single  individual  or  a  single  nation, 
that  dream  has  formed  itself  to  gain  the  mas- 
tery of  Europe  and  through  Europe  the  mas- 
tery of  the  world. 

Roughly  speaking,  Europe  came  to  its  birth 
in  the  days  of  Julius  Csesar.  The  Roman 
eagles  winged  their  way  over  the  many  lands, 
and  back  from  their  borders  came  the  laconic 
message  of  Caesar,  "I  came,  I  saw,  I  con- 
quered." That  Roman  Empire  of  400  hun- 
dred years  was  perhaps  the  greatest  national 
entity  that  ever  appeared  in  Europe,  but  it 
was  doomed  to  go  down,  submerged  beneath 
the  Gothic  storm  that  burst  so  suddenly  and 
so  furiously  out  of  the  dark  clouds  of  the  north. 
In  the  eighth  century  the  world  idea  fired  the 
brain  of  Charlemagne,  but  his  mighty  empire 
fell  because  the  machinery  of  his  government 


16  WORLD  POWER 

failed  to  consolidate  the  more  permanent  ele- 
ments of  the  state.  In  the  eleventh  century  the 
idea  seized  the  Norman  brain  and  although 
they  conquered  England  and  most  of  France 
and  Germany  and  part  of  Italy  and  ruled  the 
sea,  they  were  not  able  to  assimilate  their  con- 
quests, with  the  exception  of  England,  where 
their  great  William  the  Conqueror  became  the 
founder  of  our  royal  English  line.  It  was 
the  Popes  who  next  dreamed  of  world  power, 
and  in  the  twelfth  century  Innocent  III  made 
a  mighty  effort  for  political  control  of  Europe, 
forgetting  that  his  kingdom,  if  he  had  a  king- 
dom, was  not  of  this  world.  It  was  Spain's 
turn  next,  and  the  sixteenth  century  saw  the 
Spanish  influence  extend  until  she  prepared 
to  launch  her  thunderbolt  against  her  last  and 
greatest  rival,  England.  But  the  hand  of 
Providence  was  lifted  against  her,  and  Spain's 
Armada  was  shattered  on  the  storm-swept 
coasts  of  Britain.  Louis  the  Fourteenth  of 
France,  "the  Grand  Monarch,"  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  took  up  the  dream.  It  was  he 
who  said,  "The  State!  I  am  the  State."  But 
that  very  State  crumbled  away  beneath  the 
wickedness  and  corruption  of  his  wicked  and 


WORLD  POWER  17 

corrupted  Court.  One  hundred  years  ago 
there  sprang  into  the  arena  of  Europe  the  daz- 
zling genius  of  Napoleon.  In  the  western 
world  his  like  had  not  been  seen  before.  The 
world  idea  was  in  his  brain  and  the  thunder- 
bolts of  Jove  were  in  his  hand.  At  the  close 
of  his  first  Italian  campaigns,  the  greatest 
military  marvel  of  history,  he  was  only  twenty- 
eight  years  of  age.  "At  that  time,"  he  said 
afterward,  "I  saw  what  I  might  become.  I 
already  saw  the  world  beneath  me  as  if  I  were 
being  carried  through  the  air."  But  the  star 
of  Napoleon  set  and  his  restless  and  ambitious 
spirit  chafed  itself  away  on  the  lonely  rock  of 
St.  Helena. 

And  now  in  our  own  day  that  dream  of 
world  power  has  again  mounted  to  the  brain 
of  one  man  and  one  nation.  There  is  evi- 
dence enough  to  be  had,  if  evidence  were  need- 
ed, that  the  consuming  passion  of  Prussia  is 
to  control  the  world.  It  is  not  many  years  ago 
that  the  German  Kaiser  at  a  national  anni- 
versary declared,  "that  henceforth  nothing 
must  be  settled  in  this  world  without  the  in- 
tervention of  Germany  and  the  German  Em- 
peror."    Prof.  Treitschke,  the  German  his- 


18  WORLD  POWER 

torian,  says  that  "the  sceptre  of  the  universe 
will  belong  to  the  Germans,  who  will  impose 
their  will  upon  the  decadent  and  enfeebled 
people  round  about."  A  German  writer  of 
note  has  observed  "that  true  history  will  be- 
gin from  the  moment  that  the  German,  with 
a  mighty  hand,  seizes  the  inheritance  of  an- 
tiquity." General  von  Bernhardi  in  his  notable 
book  on  "Germany  and  the  Next  War,"  has 
a  chapter  that  bears  the  title  "World  Power 
or  Downfall,"  and  the  refrain  sounds  through 
his  volume  again  and  again,  "It  is  all  or  noth- 
ing; it  is  now  or  never."  I  pass  no  judgment 
on  these  statements  for  the  moment.  I  merely 
quote  them  to  show  how  that  idea  of  world 
power  is  not  dead,  even  in  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury, how  the  fatal  fire  may  burn  in  the  brain 
of  one  man  and  one  nation,  how  these  danger- 
ous ambitions  have  jeopardized  the  freedom 
of  mankind,  and  how  the  whole  continent  of 
Europe — and  indeed  the  whole  civilized  world 
— feels  that  the  threatened  liberties  and  the 
sacred  pledges  of  honorable  nations  must  be 
defended  at  any  cost  against  the  merciless  ag- 
gressions of  a  strong  and  unscrupulous  foe. 


WORLD  POWER  19 

The  Claims  of  World  Empire  by  Christ 

And  now,  against  the  background  of  all 
these  foolish  world  dreams  that  have  been  en- 
tertained in  turn  by  Roman  and  Norman, 
Spanish  and  British,  French  and  German,  let 
me  fling  up  this  great  truth,  the  assertion  which 
I  have  been  preparing  to  make  from  the  be- 
ginning. It  is  this — that  there  is  not,  and 
never  has  been,  and  never  shall  be,  any  single 
individual  except  One  who  has  the  right  or 
the  qualification  to  aspire  to  world  power,  and 
there  is  not,  and  never  has  been,  and  never  shall 
be,  any  nation  or  society  or  people  in  the  world, 
except  one,  that  has  the  right  or  the  resources 
to  carry  such  claims  to  a  glorious  and  success- 
ful issue.  You  ask  me  who  that  individual 
is,  and  I  answer  you  in  the  words  of  our  scrip- 
ture to-night,  "Wherefore  God  also  hath  highly 
exalted  Him  and  given  Him  a  name  that  is 
above  every  name,  that  at  the  name  of  Jesus 
every  knee  should  bow,  of  things  in  heaven 
and  things  on  earth  and  things  under  the  earth, 
and  that  every  tongue  should  confess  that 
Jesus  Christ  is  Lord  to  the  glory  of  God  the 
Father."    You  ask  me  who  that  people,  that 


20  WORLD  POWER 

society,  may  be,  and  I  answer  you  again  in 
the  words  of  scripture,  "But  ye  are  a  chosen 
generation,  a  royal  priesthood,  a  holy  nation,  a 
peculiar  people,  that  ye  should  show  forth  the 
praises  of  Him  who  hath  called  you  out  of 
darkness  into  His  marvellous  light." 

It  is  a  long  time  since  these  great  claims 
were  made  for  Christ  and  His  people.  It  is 
a  long  time  since  John  in  apocalyptic  vision 
lifted  one  corner  of  the  veil  and  showed  us 
that  "the  kingdoms  of  this  world  are  become 
the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  of  His  Christ." 
It  is  a  long  time  since  Paul,  surveying  the 
battlefield  where  Christ  had  met  His  enemies, 
declared  "that  He  must  reign  until  He  hath 
put  all  his  enemies  under  His  feet."  It  is 
longer  still  since  the  Psalmist  in  his  inspired 
moment  heard  Jehovah  breathe  this  promise 
to  His  Son,  "Thou  art  my  son,  this  day  have 
I  begotten  thee:  ask  of  me  and  I  will  give 
thee  the  heathen  for  thine  inheritance  and  the 
uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  for  thy  posses- 
sion." It  is  a  long  time,  too,  since  Isaiah  with 
seraphic  vision  saw  Him  coming  up  from  the 
carnage  of  His  last  victory:  "He  that  cometh 
forth  from  Edom  with  dyed  garments  from 


WORLD  POWER  21 

Bozrah,  this  that  is  glorious  in  His  apparel, 
striding"  along  in  the  greatness  of  His 
strength."  These  are  great  claims,  but  there 
is  not  one  prophecy  concerning  Christ  that 
shall  not  be  fulfilled,  and  there  is  not  one  claim 
for  His  people  that  shall  not  be  made  effec- 
tive when  by  His  power  in  them  they  shall 
impose  their  spirit  and  His  spirit  upon  all  peo- 
ples and  kindreds  and  nations  and  tongues. 

It  may  be  said  that  this  is  but  an  empty 
claim,  with  no  more  promise  of  fulfillment  than 
another.  But  it  is  not  so.  It  is  supported 
from  every  side — intellectual,  spiritual,  philo- 
sophical, ethnological.  In  general  terms  it 
may  be  said  that  the  claims  for  world  power 
with  any  aspiring  nation  or  ruler  rest  upon 
three  conditions:  first,  the  personality  that 
rules  must  have  a  universal  appeal;  second, 
the  conquest  he  makes  must  be  a  spiritual  con- 
quest; third,  the  end  he  secures  must  be  the 
highest  good  of  all. 

1.  The  world  ruler  must  have  in  him  the 
element  of  universal  appeal.  By  which  I  mean 
that  his  nature  must  be  so  full  and  perfect, 
so  many-sided  and  all-sided,  so  comprehensive 
and  responsive,  that  the  genius  and  tempera- 


22  WORLD  POWER 

ment  and  spirit  and  aspirations  of  every  peo- 
ple and  nation  and  kindred  and  ton^e  will 
find  its  answer  in  him,  and  he  shall  be  able  to 
articulate  the  peculiar  and  subtle  quality  of 
every  individual  subject.  And  because  that 
universal  appeal  has  never  been  and  can  never 
be  found  in  any  mortal  man,  it  is  impossible 
for  any  one  man  to  ever  mount  the  throne 
of  a  true  world  power.  Caesar  is  a  Roman,  al- 
ways a  Roman,  with  the  pride  of  the  Roman 
in  his  heart,  and  his  withering  scorn  scorch- 
ing the  barbarian  who  crouches  at  his  feet. 
With  all  his  force  of  character,  his  versatility 
of  mind,  his  gifts — statesman,  poet,  musician, 
soldier,  preacher — it  is  impossible  that  the  Ger- 
man Kaiser  should  ever  become  a  true  world 
ruler,  for  the  fire  is  Prussian  fire  that  lights 
his  eye.  The  one  man  of  mortal  and  sinful 
men  who  came  nearest  to  it  in  Europe  was 
Napoleon  Bonaparte.  In  my  humble  judg- 
ment his  was  the  most  stupendous  personality 
that  ever  flung  its  impact  against  the  Euro- 
pean life;  his  the  most  rapid  and  compre- 
hensive mind;  his  the  most  dazzling  and  bril- 
liant genius.  And  yet  Napoleon  is  a  Corsican. 
The  most  he  can  accomplish  is  to  interpret  the 


WORLD  POWER  23 

spirit  of  a  passing  phase  of  the  French  peo- 
ple. But  Napoleon  could  never  have  incar- 
nated the  genius  of  British  liberty;  he  could 
never  gather  up  into  himself  the  elements  of 
the  true  democracy.  The  wistful,  hungry 
gaze  of  the  Russian  eyes  could  never  find  a 
response  in  his,  for  the  full  note  of  the  uni- 
versal was  not  within  his  soul.  It  is  in  Christ 
and  Christ  alone  j^ou  find  that  full  sounding 
note. 

"One  man  of  a  particular  age  and  race," 
says  Bishop  Gore,  "cannot  be  the  standard  for 
all  men,  the  judge  of  all  men  of  all  ages  and 
races,  the  goal  of  all  human  moral  develop- 
ment, unless  he  is  more  than  one  among  many. 
And  that  is  what  we  find  Christ  to  be;  He  is 
more  than  "one  among  many."  You  cannot 
mention  Him  in  the  same  breath  and  in  the 
same  class  as  Shakespeare  and  Socrates  and 
Confucius  and  Emerson,  brilliant  as  their 
genius  may  be.  He  is  the  one  above  all  others. 
He  is  not  "a  son  of  men,"  nor  "a  son  of  man," 
nor  "the  son  of  men" ;  He  is  "the  Son  of  Man^' 
— the  Universal  Homo,  blending  in  Himself 
all  races  and  ages  and  temperaments  and  types. 
He  belongs  to  all  the  centuries,  though  He 


24  WORLD  POWER 

was  born  in  the  first.  He  belongs  to  all  races, 
though  He  was  born  a  Jew.  He  belongs  to 
all  countries,  though  He  was  born  in  Bethle- 
hem. He  combines  all  the  purest  and  gentlest 
of  womanhood  with  the  strongest  and  great- 
est of  manhood.  And  any  man,  whether  he 
be  prince  or  peasant,  who  will  front  the  eyes 
of  Jesus  will  find  them  flash  back  the  native 
spiritual  fire  of  his  own ;  and  any  man,  whether 
he  be  Mongolian  or  Saxon  or  Teuton  or  Slav 
or  Latin,  who  comes  near  to  the  heart  of  Christ, 
will  find  it  throb  in  perfect  sympathy  with 
the  deepest  core  of  his  own  being.  It  is  this 
that  constitutes  His  first  great  claim  for  world 
power,  and  beside  Him  there  is  none  else. 

2.  Jesus  alone  is  qualified  for  world  power, 
for  He  alone  can  make  the  supreme  spiritual 
conquest  of  men.  You  will  agree  with  this  that 
no  man  is  conquered  till  the  deepest  thing  in 
him  has  been  subdued.  You  may  enslave  his 
body,  but  his  soul  is  free.  You  may  imprison 
his  mind,  but  his  spirit  will  range.  Forty 
years  ago  the  Germans  conquered  Alsace  and 
Lorraine,  but  these  provinces  have  never  been 
subdued.  Their  citizenship  is  German  but  their 
allegiance  is  French.    Their  taxes  have  flowed 


WORLD  POWER  25 

into  the  German  treasury,  but  the  incense  that 
rises  from  their  heart  altars  is  "Vive  la 
France."  He  who  conquers  must  conquer  the 
soul.  Go  back  to  Napoleon  and  learn  that 
though  he  conquered  almost  every  nation  in 
Europe,  he  subdued  none.  The  fires  were 
smouldered,  but  they  leapt  out  afresh.  At  St. 
Helena  the  Emperor  said — you  may  read  it  in 
Bertrand's  Memoirs — "I  know  men  and  I  tell 
you  that  Jesus  Christ  is  not  a  man.  Alexan- 
der, Caesar,  Charlemagne  and  myself  have 
founded  empires,  but  upon  what  did  we  rear 
the  creations  of  our  genius?  Upon  force. 
Jesus  Christ  alone  founded  an  empire  upon 
love,  and  to  this  very  day  there  are  millions 
who  would  die  for  Him."  Of  all  the  brilliant 
words  of  Napoleon  these  are  among  the  most 
brilliant  and  wisest  of  them  all.  For  the  con- 
quest of  Jesus  is  the  conquest  of  the  soul.  It 
is  the  conquest  of  the  deepest  and  last  thing  in 
man.  His  weapons  are  the  weapons  of  His 
love.  By  these  He  will  win  where  others  fail, 
and  everj^  conquest  is  a  conquest  that  endures. 
There  is  no  other  hope  of  a  world  kingdom, 
for  no  kingdom  can  hope  for  universal  sway 
that  does  not  base  itself  upon  the  conquest 


26  WORLD  POWER 

of  the  deepest  thing  in  man.  It  is  that  citadel 
that  Jesus  carries  and  that  is  the  reason  that 
no  man  can  ever  truly  say  that  he  belongs  to 
the  kingdom  of  Christ  who  has  not  yielded  up 
to  Him  the  inner  citadel  of  his  soul. 

3.  And  just  because  His  conquest  is  a  con- 
quest of  the  deepest  thing  in  man,  He  meets 
the  third  qualification  for  world  power  in  that 
He  secures  the  highest  good  of  man.  For  there 
are  no  interests  so  precious  as  the  spiritual  in- 
terests, and  the  highest  good  of  these  is  the 
highest  good  of  the  whole  man.  Man  has  a 
body,  but  man  is  a  soul.  Whatever  kingdom 
claims  his  allegiance  must  be  a  kingdom  that 
secures  the  highest  good  of  the  highest  part  of 
man.  And  this  has  Jesus  done.  He  has  done 
it  and  none  other  has  done  it.  It  is  His  work 
and  not  the  work  of  another.  He  has  emanci- 
pated the  souls  of  men.  It  may  be  within 
the  power  of  others  to  lift  the  burdens 
from  the  body;  Jesus  alone  can  lift  the 
burdens  of  the  soul.  It  may  lie  within 
the  power  of  others  to  enfranchise  the  mind; 
Jesus  Christ  alone  can  liberate  the  spirit. 
He  has  met  our  worst  enemies;  He  has  re- 
moved our  burdens ;  He  has  cleansed  our  stain ; 


WORLD  POWER  27 

He  has  cancelled  our  guilt;  He  has  made  pos- 
sible our  fellowship  with  the  highest;  He  has 
opened  to  men  the  expanses  of  heaven ;  He  has 
charged  life  with  purpose ;  He  has  guaranteed 
our  fullest  development  on  the  highest  possi- 
ble pattern  towards  the  highest  possible  goal. 
The  good  of  the  world  and  the  good  of  the  in- 
dividual are  safe  within  His  hands.  He  has 
caught  us  up  into  the  eternal  enterprises  of 
God,  and  if  we  will  we  may  share  in  the  abid- 
ing glories  and  profits  of  His  kingdom  and 
serve  Him  from  the  steps  of  that  Throne  that 
shall  never  pass  away. 

My  friends,  this  is  the  true  world  power. 
This  is  the  one  kingdom  that  will  survive.  The 
issue  is  joined,  the  battle  is  set,  and  the  out- 
come is  sure.  To-night  I  summon  you  in  the 
name  of  the  King  to  join  your  fortunes  to  His. 
It  is  Christ  against  Caesar,  truth  against  error, 
light  against  darkness,  freedom  against  tyran- 
ny, the  golden  day  against  the  dark  age. 
Where  do  you  stand?  Under  what  sovereign 
do  you  serve?  Is  it  the  Emperor  or  the  Child? 
Is  it  Christ  or  Csesar? 


II 

SHATTERING   THE   NEST 


II 

SHATTERING   THE   NEST 

Text: — "As  an  eagle  stirreth  up  her  nest,  flutteretk 
over  her  young,  spreadeth  abroad  her  wings,  taketh 
them,  hecdreth  them  on  her  wings,  so  the  Lord  alone  did 
lead  him,  and  there  was  no  strange  god  with  him" — 
Deut.  xxxii.,  11,  12. 

Of  all  the  figures  of  the  Old  Testament, 
perhaps  there  is  no  other  that  illustrates  in  such 
a  striking  fashion  the  severity  and  tenderness 
of  the  Divine  love.  It  was  a  figure  that  was 
familiar  to  the  vivid  imagination  of  every  Ori- 
ental mind.  On  the  face  of  some  high  cliff, 
far  above  the  plain,  on  a  ledge  of  rock,  an 
eagle,  with  instinctive  wisdom,  has  built  her 
nest,  far  from  the  prowling  of  wild  beasts  and 
safe  from  the  fury  of  the  storm.  There  she 
has  hatched  and  reared  her  young.  In  the 
early  days  of  their  helpless  babyhood  she  has 
carefully  protected  them,  and  has  gone  out, 
swift  of  pinion,  keen  of  eye,  and  strong  in  beak 

31 


32  WORLD  POWER 

and  claw,  to  find  their  daily  food.  Under 
her  tender  care  they  flourish  till  their  callow 
days  are  gone  and  the  time  has  come  when 
they  must  fly  and  forage  for  themselves  on 
the  wide  plain  below.  But  every  attempt  on 
the  part  of  the  mother  bird  to  induce  them  to 
leave  their  nest  is  unavailing.  The  cliff  is  so 
high,  the  plain  is  so  far  below,  the  air  is  so 
wide  and  empty,  the  ledge  is  so  safe,  and  their 
wings  are  not  yet  tried.  You  can  see  the 
mother  eagle  thrusting  them  out  from  the  nest, 
but  they  only  flutter  about  here  and  there  and 
hurrjT-  back  to  the  shelter  of  their  cosy  home. 
And  then  the  eagle  does  a  strange  and  what 
seems  a  cruel  thing.  She  deliberately  wrecks 
her  nest,  tearing  it  to  pieces  with  her  claws 
and  scattering  its  ruins  out  in  the  abyss  be- 
low till  the  fledglings  are  left  without  a  shel- 
ter on  the  lofty  height.  They  are  driven  off 
the  ledge.  But  the  mother  bird  hovers  over 
them.  She  guides  them  in  their  flight.  By  her 
own  example  she  teaches  them  to  use  their 
wings.  If  one  of  them  should  weary  and 
begin  to  fall,  she  swoops  beneath  it  and  bears 
it  up  on  her  strong  pinions,  but  when  its  wings 
are  rested  and  its  fear  is  gone,  she  swoops 


SHATTERING  THE  NEST        33 

from  beneath  it  again,  and  tosses  it  out  once 
more  upon  the  empty  air. 

And  thus  the  young  birds  are  forced  to  ven- 
ture into  that  great  space  in  which  for  all  the 
future  they  must  live  and  move  and  have  their 
being.  So  they  are  compelled  to  use  their 
wings,  to  develop  their  strength,  to  measure 
their  latent  energies  against  the  forces  of  Na- 
ture until  their  pinions  are  trained,  their  eye 
is  keen,  the  beak  and  claw  grow  strong,  and 
the  stout  young  eagle  goes  out  to  the  enjoy- 
ment of  his  native  element  with  the  full  use 
of  every  tested  power. 

It  was  in  the  terms  of  that  stern  symbolism 
that  Moses  viewed  the  severity  and  tenderness 
of  the  Divine  love,  and  also  interpreted  the  se- 
cret of  the  nation's  history.  He  was  looking 
back,  near  the  close  of  life,  upon  the  dealings 
of  Jehovah  with  His  chosen  people,  dealings 
not  always  easy  to  understand.  But  a  gleam 
of  light  came  through  the  picture  of  the  eagle 
and  her  nest.  What  if  God  were  the  great 
mother  eagle  of  the  race?  Indeed,  had  not 
Jehovah  said,  "You  know  what  I  did  to  the 
Egyptians,  and  how  I  bore  j''ou  on  eagles' 
wings    and    brought    you    unto    Myself." 


34  WORLD  POWER 

Through  the  ages,  therefore,  one  increasing 
purpose  runs.  It  was  God,  then,  who  shook 
them  out  of  their  shelters  in  Egypt.  It  was 
the  Lord  who  broke  up  the  stagnation  of  their 
life.  It  was  Jehovah  who  shattered  their  homes 
in  Goshen,  where  they  were  content  to  remain 
in  debasing  slavery.  It  was  God  who  forced 
them  through  the  discipline  of  the  wilderness, 
who  sent  them  out  into  the  venture  of  the 
desert,  where  their  powers  were  awakened, 
their  nationhood  trained,  where  they  were  fitted 
for  their  place  in  history  and  prepared  to  step 
into  the  great  scheme  of  redemption  to  which 
they  were  so  vitally  important  in  the  purposes 
of  God. 

You  will  instantly  recognize  that  here  is  un- 
covered one  of  those  primitive  and  fundamen- 
tal principles  lying  at  the  basis  of  all  life — 
a  principle  that  holds  good  not  only  in  the 
natural  world,  in  the  training  of  eagles,  but 
in  the  supernatural  world,  in  the  training  of 
human  life. 

The  Individual  Experience 

And  before  I  pass  on  to  speak  of  the  one 
theme  that  is  uppermost  in  all  our  minds  to-day, 


SHATTERING  THE  NEST       35 

let  me  try  your  patience  a  moment  while  we 
note  the  bearing  of  this  principle  on  the  indi- 
vidual. The  truth  is  simply  this — that  every 
human  life,  to  come  to  its  best  and  highest, 
to  be  fitted  for  and  reach  the  goal  for  which 
it  was  intended,  will  find  its  nest  shattered,  and 
must  be  prepared  to  confront  those  upheavals 
that  break  up  our  shelters  and  cast  us  out  on 
the  wide  spaces  of  the  new  and  the  untried. 
We  need  not  go  beyond  our  own  lives  to  know 
how  prone  we  all  are  to  settle  down  into  the 
snug  and  complacent  nest  that  our  circum- 
stances may  afford,  refusing  to  face  the  new 
and  the  unknown.  Ah,  then  it  is  the  part  of 
God's  wisdom  and  love  to  allow  the  shattering 
of  the  nest,  that  in  the  consequent  discipline 
our  powers  may  be  developed  and  our  faith 
in  Him  increased. 

Such  a  principle  lies  at  the  basis  of  all  in- 
tellectual growth.  Change  is  a  prime  condi- 
tion of  all  apprehension  and  intelligence.  The 
mind  dies  under  stagnation.  It  only  expands 
as  it  is  compelled  to  venture  into  the  hitherto 
unexplored.  As  James  Martineau  says: 
"Dipped  for  ever  in  the  same  scene,  plunged 
in  the  one  color,  filled  with  one  monotone,  no 


36  WORLD  POWER 

perception  would  be  startled  into  birth;  the 
glance  of  attention  sleeps  till  the  moment  of 
transition;  it  leaps  out  at  the  edges  of  light 
and  darkness,  of  sound  and  silence,  and  in 
crossing  the  line  first  learns  the  realms  on 
either  side."  Much  more  is  such  an  upheaval 
the  condition  of  all  moral  and  spiritual  prog- 
ress. The  most  earnest  souls  have  welcomed 
the  day  when  their  nest  was  shattered,  when 
they  were  j)ushed  off  their  comfortable  ledge 
to  test  their  wings  in  the  unknown  spaces  of 
life.  You  recall  that  prayer  of  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson,  which  he  calls  "The  Celestial  Sur- 
geon," off'ered  when  he  feared  the  loss  of  the 
keen  appreciation  of  life's  common  joys; 

If  I  have  faltered  more  or  less, 
In  my  great  task  of  happiness; 
If   I    have   moved   among  my    race. 
And  shown  no  glorious  morning  face; 
If  beams  of  happy  human   eyes 
Have  moved  me  not;  if  morning  skies, 
Books,  and  my  food,  and  summer  rain. 
Knocked  on  my  sullen  heart  in  vain: — 
Lord !  Thy  most  pointed  pleasure  take. 
And  stab  my  spirit  broad  awake; 
Or,  Lord,  if  too  obdurate  I, 
Choose  thou,  before  that  spirit  die, 
A   piercing   pain,    a    killing   sin. 
And  to  my  dead  heart  run  them  in! 


SHATTERING  THE  NEST       37 

Often  and  often  was  that  prayer  answered  in 
Stevenson's  experience;  not  often  through 
pleasure,  but  many  times  through  pain.  Every 
nest  he  feathered  was  shattered.  He  was  con- 
stantly being  driven  off  the  ledge  of  life.  He 
was  ever  testing  his  wings  against  the  stormy 
gales:  but  think  of  the  pinions  he  had,  think 
of  the  vision  he  gained,  think  of  the  ranges  he 
swept,  and  then  ask  if  it  was  not  an  eternal 
kindness  that  hovered  over  him. 

The  Present  Crisis 

And  now,  not  for  one  individual  but  for 
millions,  not  for  one  nation  alone  but  for  al- 
most every  nation  of  Europe,  there  has  been 
shattered,  at  one  ruthless  stroke,  the  precarious 
nest  of  international  peace  that  has  been  tot- 
tering so  long  on  the  doubtful  security  of 
the  diplomatic  ledge.  To-day  we  are  involved 
in  a  struggle  such  as  the  world  has  not  known 
before  and  the  issues  of  which  are  beyond  any 
human  wisdom  to  forecast.  This  is  not  the 
hour  nor  the  place  to  deal  with  the  long  train 
of  events  leading  up  to  this  crisis,  so  far  as 
those  events  are  known  to  the  world.     The 


38  WORLD  POWER 

sobering  fact  is  this,  that  the  calamity  is  upon 
us,  and  we  must  see  it  through  to  the  end. 
We  have  put  our  hand  to  the  plough,  and 
there  can  be  no  looking  back,  and  we  must 
ask  ourselves  what  our  spirit  and  behavior  are 
to  be. 

Almost  all  will  depend  on  how  far  the  con- 
science of  the  nation  is  clear  before  Heaven. 
The  first  spectre  to  be  laid  is  any  haunting 
fear  as  to  the  righteousness  of  our  cause.  In 
that  region  every  man  must  decide  for  him- 
self. For  my  own  part,  I  do  not  hesitate  to 
say  that  there  is  enough,  and  far  more  than 
enough,  on  the  open  page  of  our  diplomacy, 
as  set  forth  in  the  White  Paper  published  by 
His  Majesty's  Government,  to  clear  the  con- 
science of  the  nation,  to  strengthen  her  moral 
purpose,  and  clothe  her  with  the  conviction 
that  she  has  unsheathed  her  sword  in  a  cause 
that  is  right  and  just.  It  is  now  clear  to  all 
the  world  that  our  distinguished  Foreign  Sec- 
retary— and  no  greater  has  guided  the  foreign 
policies  of  Britain  since  the  days  of  Pitt — that 
Sir  Edward  Grey,  whose  sincerity  and  earnest- 
ness are  recognized  as  unimpeachable  in  every 
Court  of  Europe,  has  labored  in  the  face  of 


SHATTERING  THE  NEST       39 

great  obstacles  and  in  spite  of  sore  provoca- 
tion, till  the  last  moment  and  beyond  it,  to  pre- 
serve for  Europe  "an  honorable  and  a  lasting 
peace."  It  is  now  clear  to  all  the  world  that 
by  the  rejection — the  unwarranted  and  inso- 
lent rejection — of  his  just  and  generous  over- 
tures his  great  and  beneficent  purposes  have 
been  defeated.  It  is  now  clear  to  all  the  world 
that  nothing  more  than  Britain  has  done  could 
she  have  done  to  prevent,  in  the  first  instance, 
the  outbreak  of  war,  and  to  limit,  in  the  sec- 
ond instance,  the  area  of  hostilities  once  begun. 
It  is  now  clear  to  all  the  world  that  nothing 
less  than  Britain  demanded  of  Germany  could 
she  have  demanded  and  maintain  her  honor. 
As  the  guardian  of  her  own  purity,  which  is 
dearer  to  her  than  life,  and  as  the  protector  of 
the  smaller  States,  the  most  reluctant  must 
confess  that  Britain  has  gone  the  last  step 
towards  peace  that  was  consistent  with  her  own 
honor  and  consistent  with  that  obligation  that 
the  strong  must  always  owe  to  the  weak.  No 
better  defence — if  defence,  indeed,  were  need- 
ed— can  be  found  than  the  notable  words  of 
Britain's  great  Prime  Minister,  whose  clear 
judgment  and  calm  spirit,  whose  chastened 


40  WORLD  POWER 

wisdom  and  unflinching  courage,  are  among 
the  greatest  assets  of  the  nation  at  this  crisis  in 
her  history. 

"If  I  am  asked,"  said  Mr.  Asquith,  "what 
we  are  fighting  for,  I  can  reply  in  two  sen- 
tences. In  the  first  place,  to  fulfil  a  solemn 
international  obligation,  an  obligation  which, 
if  it  had  been  entered  into  between  private  per- 
sons in  the  ordinary  concerns  of  life,  would 
have  been  regarded  as  an  obligation  not  only 
of  law  but  of  honor,  which  no  self-respect- 
ing man  could  possibly  have  repudiated.  I 
say,  secondly,  we  are  fighting  to  vindicate  the 
principle,  in  these  days  when  material  force 
sometimes  seems  to  be  the  dominant  influence 
and  factor  in  the  development  of  mankind — 
we  are  fighting  to  vindicate  the  principle  that 
small  nationalities  are  not  to  be  crushed  in 
defiance  of  international  good  faith  by  the  ar- 
bitrary will  of  a  strong  and  overmastering 
power.  I  do  not  believe  any  nation  ever  en- 
tered into  a  great  controversy — and  this  is 
one  of  the  greatest  history  will  ever  know — 
with  a  clearer  conscience,  and  stronger  con- 
viction that  it  is  fighting,  not  for  aggression, 
not  for  maintenance  even  of  its  own  selfish 


SHATTERING  THE  NEST       41 

interest,  but  in  defence  of  i)rinciples  the  main- 
tenance of  which  is  vital  to  the  civihzation  of 
the  world." 

Every  word  in  that  historic  paragraph  is 
weighty  and  none  more  so  than  the  last  sen- 
tence. It  is  the  civilization  of  the  world  that 
is  at  stake.  Liberty  is  threatened  in  the  very 
cradle  of  liberty  itself.  The  inalienable  rights 
of  every  free-born  citizen  throughout  the 
world  are  jeopardized  by  the  aggressive  tyran- 
ny of  a  proud  and  insolent  militarism.  The 
supremacy  of  the  German  spirit  over  Europe 
would  set  the  civilization  of  the  world  back  a 
thousand  years.  The  fruits  of  our  freedom 
are  too  precious  to  be  abandoned  after  the  long 
struggle  of  the  centuries.  That  freedom  was 
purchased  on  the  blood-soaked  fields  of  Europe 
by  our  fathers  and,  please  God,  it  shall  not 
be  sold  without  the  blood  of  their  sons.  There 
never  was  a  better  cause  undertaken  after  more 
patient  exhaustion  of  the  means  of  an  honor- 
able peace,  and  in  the  face  of  more  deliberate 
and  insulting  provocation,  and  there  are  no 
lengths  of  resistance  and  self-sacrifice,  we  be- 
lieve, to  which  the  British  nation  and  the  na- 


42  WORLD  POWER 

tions  of  the  Empire  will  not  be  prepared  to 
go  to  defend  the  right  and  to  crush  that  mad 
spirit  which,  beginning  in  "folly,"  has  had 
its  end  in  "wickedness."  I  speak  of  this  be- 
cause, without  a  clear  conscience,  om'  purpose 
cannot  be  high,  our  faith  cannot  be  firm  and 
strong;  but  with  the  profound  conviction  that 
our  cause  is  right,  the  faith  of  the  nation  will 
remain  unclouded,  the  courage  of  the  nation 
will  never  falter,  the  sacrifice  of  the  nation  will 
know  no  limits;  no  defeat  shall  ever  dismay 
us,  no  victory  shall  ever  spoil  us,  for  with  un- 
shamed  conscience  we  can  and  we  will  in 
humblest  dependence  wait  upon  God. 

The  Duties  of  the  Hour 

With  that  deep  sense  of  right  undergirding 
all,  what  is  to  be  the  spirit  of  our  people? 
There  are  three  duties  that  await  us: 

1.  We  must  seek,  first  of  all,  for  the  good 
that  lies  beyond  this  conflict,  for  good  there 
surely  is.  It  is  not  easy  now  to  see  its  form. 
It  is  hard  to  trace  one  gleam  of  light  through 
the  cloud.  It  is  difficult  to  behold  anything 
in  the  immediate  prospect  but  the  incalcula- 


SHATTERING  THE  NEST       43 

ble  suffering  and  misery  that  must  fall  on 
guilty  and  innocent  alike,  and  the  immeasura- 
ble loss  that  must  come,  not  to  this  country 
alone,  but  to  every  country,  and  not  to  this 
age  alone,  "but  to  posterity  and  to  the  whole 
prospects  of  European  civilization."  But 
good  there  will  be !  I  repeat,  it  is  not  easy  now 
to  see. 

For  who  can  so  forecast  the  years. 
And  find  in  loss  a  gain  to  match? 
Or  reach  a  hand  through  time  to  catch 
The  far-off  interest  of  tears? 

But  a  "far-off  interest"  there  will  surely  be 
to  all  our  tears,  and  in  the  providence  of  God 
a  mightier  gain  will  match  each  overwhelming 
loss.  It  may  be  that  the  Empire  needs  this 
baptism  of  blood.  We  are  not  here  to  con- 
demn one  another,  but  to  confess  that,  as  a 
nation,  in  the  riot  of  gain  and  pleasure,  we 
have  been  forgetting  God.  Isaiah  tells  of  a 
time  when  Israel  was  soggy  with  content, 
steeped  in  the  stupor  of  material  prosperity, 
morally  insensible  under  the  narcotic  of  world- 
ly gain  and  pleasure,  till  it  was  written  of 
them,  "The  heart  of  this  people  is  waxed  fat, 
their  ears  are  dull  of  hearing,  their  eyes  have 


44  WORLD  POWER 

been  closed,  lest  they  see  with  their  eyes  and 
hear  with  their  ears  and  believe  with  their 
hearts."  Is  it  any  wonder  that  such  a  nest  of 
comfort  was  shattered  and  they  passed  into  the 
captivity  of  Babylon,  from  which  they 
emerged  with  a  chastened  view  of  life  and  a 
new  recognition  of  the  sovereignty  of  God? 

Neither  must  we  forget  that  it  has  been  out 
of  such  experiences  that  almost  every  nation 
has  come  to  its  best  in  literature  and  art  and 
religion.  It  was  this  fact  that  led  Ruskin, 
no  doubt,  to  make  that  extreme  statement 
about  war.  "I  found  in  brief  that  all  great  na- 
tions learned  their  truth  of  word  and  strength 
of  thought  in  war;  that  they  were  nour- 
ished in  war  and  wasted  in  peace,  taught  by 
war  and  deceived  by  peace,  trained  by  war 
and  betrayed  by  peace — in  a  word,  that  they 
were  born  in  war  and  expired  in  peace." 

Ruskin  was  not  an  advocate  of  war — far 
from  it.  He  is  only  hinting  at  this  stern  fact, 
that  without  the  ministry  of  severe  discipline 
the  best  of  the  nation  is  bound  to  die.  And 
surely  it  is  a  striking  fact  that  the  highest 


SHATTERING  THE  NEST        45 

period  of  literature  and  art  and  philosophy  in 
Greece  is  coupled  with  a  life  and  death  strug- 
gle against  Persia.  It  was  when  England 
was  fighting  against  Spain  and  Spain's  ar- 
mada that  she  entered  uj^on  the  "golden  age" 
of  English  literature  that  has  never  been  sur- 
passed, if,  indeed,  it  has  ever  been  equalled, 
in  the  subsequent  history  of  English  letters. 
Is  it  not  a  significant  fact  that  during  the 
first  ten  years  of  the  last  century,  from  1800 
to  1810,  or  you  might  stretch  it  to  1815,  at  a 
time  when  all  Europe  was  blood-dripping  with 
the  wars  of  Napoleon,  she  gave  birth  to  al- 
most every  great  man  who  was  to  guide  her 
better  destinies  for  a  hundred  years  to  come? 
In  that  terrible  decade  of  travail,  England 
gave  birth  to  Disraeli,  Gladstone,  Cobden, 
Bright,  Browning,  Tennyson,  Shaftesbury, 
and  many  others,  all  born  within  ten  years  of 
each  other.  In  these  same  ten  years  Italy 
suckled  at  her  bleeding  breasts  Cavour,  Maz- 
zini,  Garibaldi,  and  a  few  years  later  Victor 
Emmanuel,  the  four  men  who  secured  the  lib- 
erty of  the  Italian  people  and  brought  about 
the  unity  of  the  Italian  kingdom.  In  those 
same  ten  years  Germany,  fighting  then  against 


46  WORLD  POWER 

the  Csesarism  of  which  she  is  now  the  exponent, 
produced  her  first  and  greatest  statesman,  Bis- 
marck; France  gave  us  Victor  Hugo  for 
literature;  while  the  throb  of  that  world-up- 
heaval seemed  to  reach  America  and  there 
sprang  into  being  Wendell  Phillips,  William 
Lloyd  Garrison,  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe, 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  and  last  and  most 
splendid  of  all,  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  flower 
of  American  manhood.  No !  I  am  not  an  ad- 
vocate of  war.  I  believe  that  "war  is  hell"  and 
comes  out  of  hell.  But  let  us  not  forget  that 
in  His  overruling  wisdom  God  brings  good  out 
of  evil;  He  will  make  the  wrath  of  men  to 
praise  Him;  and  let  us  remember  that  the  high- 
est spiritual  interests  and  hopes  of  the  race 
were  redeemed  and  secured  out  of  the  mys- 
tery of  suffering  by  the  world's  Saviour  in 
Gethsemane  and  Calvary. 

Already,  in  the  present  crisis,  there  is  much 
that  has  been  gained.  The  hearts  of  men  every- 
where have  been  cleansed  of  cowardice  and 
divorced  from  selfishness  by  the  superb  spec- 
tacle of  Belgium — ^heroic  little  Belgium — lift- 
ing herself  with  victorious  courage  against  the 


SHATTERING  THE  NEST       47 

aggressions  of  a  tyrannous  and  unsci*upulous 
foe.  Within  our  own  Empire  we  have  seen, 
as  by  a  miracle,  the  sudden  welding  of  the 
nation's  life.  Men  and  parties  which  a  fort- 
night before  were  irreconcilable  leaped  into 
one  another's  arms.  Without  regard  for  poli- 
tical attachments,  men  have  been  invited  to  ac- 
cept, and  have  accepted,  the  gravest  responsi- 
bilities at  their  country's  call.  The  opening 
of  homes  and  mansions  for  hospitals,  the  out- 
pouring of  a  quarter  of  a  million  in  a  single 
day  for  the  Prince  of  Wales'  Fund,  the  mag- 
nificent response  to  his  Majesty's  call  for  vol- 
unteers— prove  that  the  spirit  of  the  nation  is 
not  dead  and  the  spirit  of  sacrifice,  thank  God, 
still  lives.  Ireland,  which  ten  days  before  was 
the  blackest  cloud  on  our  otherwise  bright  sky, 
is  now  the  brightest  spot  on  the  dark  horizon, 
for  Nationalist  Catholics  of  the  South  and 
Protestant  Ulstermen  of  the  North,  ready 
two  weeks  before  to  lock  arms  in  civil  strife, 
are  now  shoulder  to  shoulder  to  defend  the  na- 
tion's honor  and  protect  the  country's  flag. 
The  danger  that  has  threatened  the  Mother- 
land has  brought  her  children  from  over  the 
seas  with  swiftest  steps  to  hjsr  side.     From 


48  WORLD  POWER 

India  and  every  self-governing  Colony  of  the 
Empire  have  come  the  warm  and  unsolicited 
assurances  of  support.  You  know  the  re- 
sponse awakened  in  Canada,  and  I  am  confi- 
dent that  I  voice  the  spirit  which  animates  this 
land,  that  there  shall  not  be  lacking  the  full 
share  of  men  and  treasure  and  courage  to  as- 
sist that  dear  old  Motherland  who  has  be- 
queathed and  secured  to  us  the  sweetest  and 
truest  liberties  we  enjoy. 

2.  Our  second  duty  is  to  remember  that  God 
is  over  all.  In  the  stately  words  of  our  lesson, 
"It  is  He  that  sitteth  upon  the  circle  of  the 
earth  and  the  inhabitants  thereof  are  as  grass- 
hoppers." The  nations  before  Him  are  as  a 
drop  of  a  bucket.  He  is  the  exalter  of  princes 
and  the  debaser  of  monarchs.  He  setteth  up 
whom  He  will  and  putteth  down  whom  He 
shall  choose.  Eagle-hke  He  moves  with  lord- 
ly power  in  lofty  planes.  He  is  strong  to  de- 
stroy as  well  as  to  save.  His  eye  is  keen  to 
mark  every  foul  thing  upon  the  earth.  His 
sudden  justice  often  swoops  down  on  the  rot- 
ting carcase  of  Society  to  rend  it  in  pieces 
with  His  unexpected  judgment.     We  recall 


SHATTERING  THE  NEST       49 

what  Victor  Hugo  said  of  Waterloo:  "Was 
it  possible  for  Napoleon  to  win  Waterloo? 
We  answer,  No.  Why?  Because  of  Welling- 
ton? No.  Because  of  Blucher?  No.  Be- 
cause of  the  rain?  No.  Because  of  God.  It 
was  time  this  vast  man  should  fall.  He  had 
been  impeached  before  the  throne  of  the  In- 
finite and  his  fall  had  been  decreed."  And 
then  Victor  Hugo  adds,  with  almost  a  touch 
of  sacrilege:  "Napoleon  bothered  God."  Woe 
to  the  nation  that  "bothers  God"!  We  can 
hope  and  ask  for  nothing  higher  than  to  be 
the  instruments  of  His  will  in  all  His  unfold- 
ing of  the  moral  order.  And  if  so  be  that  we 
are  among  those  who  are  His  chosen  ministers 
of  judgment,  we  must  do  our  appointed  work 
thoroughly  and  well.  And  I  do  not  say  that 
with  the  German  people  in  mind.  There  is 
a  sense  in  which  we  are  not  at  war  with  the 
German  people,  but  with  a  war  spirit  behind 
them  which  they  detest  and  under  which  they 
groan  as  deeply  as  we.  And  it  can  hardly  be 
doubted  that  they  shall  serve  the  interests  of 
peace  and  the  Kingdom  of  the  Prince  of  Peace 
who  shall  join  hands  to  blot  out  from  the 
face  of  the  earth  that  selfish,  cruel,  unscrupu- 


50  WORLD  POWER 

lous,  blood-lusting-  spirit  of  militarism,  which, 
for  the  gratification  of  its  own  ambitions,  does 
not  hesitate  "to  wade  through  slaughter  to 
a  throne  and  shut  the  gates  of  mercy  on  man- 
kind." 

3.  Our  third  duty  is  to  fortify  ourselves  for 
great  sacrifice.  We  shall  all  be  sufferers. 
There  is  no  one,  rich  or  poor,  high  or  low,  from 
the  King  with  his  overwrought  anxiety  to  the 
lowliest  child,  on  whom  the  burden  will  not 
fall.  The  pressure  of  pain  will  come  upon 
Society  everywhere.  Destitution  will  not  be 
slow  to  visit  us.  Sorrow  shall  sit  on  every 
doorstep.  The  homes  of  great  and  small  will 
be  wrapped  in  gloom  alike  because  the  light 
will  have  died  out  of  young  eyes,  and  the 
strong  hearts  of  fathers  and  husbands  and 
brothers  and  sons  will  have  ceased  to  beat.  It 
is  the  duty  of  all  to  sink  their  selfish  interests 
in  the  interests  of  mankind.  We  must  lend 
ourselves — as  each  one  may — to  the  service  of 
others.  The  individual  loss,  the  individual 
grief,  the  individual  discomfort,  must  be  for- 
gotten. We  have  had  a  noble  example  set 
for  us  by  President  Wilson  of  the  United 


SHATTERING  THE  NEST       51 

States  of  America,  who,  from  the  bedside  of 
his  dying  wife,  penned  the  messages  of  medi- 
ation to  every  warring  State  of  Europe,  mes- 
sages which  thus  far  have  fallen  on  deaf  and 
heedless  ears.  It  is  not  easy  thus  to  subordi- 
nate personal  grief  to  the  service  of  mankind. 
But  it  must  be  done.  The  rich  must  pour  out 
their  wealth  like  water;  the  poor,  their  sym- 
pathy and  service.  Employers  must  protect 
employees  who  often  live  on  such  a  narrow 
margin.  Employees  must  be  considerate  of 
their  employers  who  have  such  immense  inter- 
ests at  stake.  All  greed  and  attempts  to  trade 
on  the  nation's  disaster  must  be  crushed  out 
of  our  hearts.  Not  even  in  money  or  food  must 
we  try  to  hoard  beyond  our  daily  and  suf- 
ficient need.  Above  all  things,  we  must  clothe 
our  spirits  in  humility  and  intercession.  We 
must  bear  in  our  souls,  not  the  weakness  of 
panic  but  the  power  of  peace.  We  must  carry 
on  our  lips,  not  the  empty  boastings  of  pride 
but  the  persistent  prayers  of  faith.  For  our 
help  is  in  God.  It  is  in  no  other.  More  than 
all  else  our  leaders  need — and  shall  I  say  de- 
sire— our  prayers,  that  theirs  may  be  the  Di- 
vine wisdom  and  theirs  the  Divine  power. 


52  WORLD  POWER 

The  nest  is  shattered!  The  birds  are  out 
upon  the  empty  air.  We  know  not  what  the 
end  may  be.  We  know  not  the  ghastly  harvest 
of  the  plain  below.  But  this  we  know,  that 
our  hope  must  be  in  God.  He  will  not  be  far 
from  those  who  put  their  trust  in  Him.  He 
will  be  above,  below,  and  round  about  them, 
to  bear  them  on  His  strong  pinions,  for  "the 
Eternal  God  is  thy  refuge,  and  underneath 
are  the  everlasting  arms." 


Ill 

ALLIANCE    AND    ENTENTE:    THE 
SOLIDARITY  OF   THE  RACE 


Ill 


ALLIANCE    AND    ENTENTE:    THE 
SOLIDARITY   OF    THE   RACE 

Text — "  ....  The  new  man,  'which  is  renewed  in 
knowledge  after  the  image  of  him  that  created  him: 
where  there  is  neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  circumcision  nor 
uncircumcision.  Barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  nor  free:  but 
Christ  is  all  and  in  all." — Colossians  3:  10,  11. 

The  sentiments  of  these  words  are  echoed 
in  many  parts  of  the  scripture,  but  they  fall 
with  peculiar  and  startling  force  from  the 
lips  of  Paul  because  in  birth  and  training  and 
temperament  he  was  the  greatest  individual- 
ist of  his  day.  The  native  atmosphere  of  this 
youth  was  designed  to  call  him  away  from  the 
world-idea  of  the  common  life  of  man,  and 
everything  conspired  to  make  him  proud  and 
exclusive  and  self-contained.  By  nature  he 
was  one  of  those  independent  spirits  who  is 
born  to  lead,  who  is  a  pioneer  in  the  world 
of  thought,  blazing  new  trails,  establishing  new 

standards,  and  setting  aside  with  a  fine  aloof- 

55 


56  WORLD  POWER 

ness  of  soul  the  assistance  and  companionship 
of  men.  He  had  been  born,  as  you  know,  into 
the  great  Roman  Empire,  the  proudest  and 
most  exclusive  of  the  old  empires  of  the  world. 
When  occasion  demanded  it,  Paul  appealed  to 
his  rights  as  a  Roman  citizen,  and  even  to 
the  last  the  flash  of  the  old  Roman  fire  would 
leap  forth  from  his  eye.  And  above  all  things 
here  was  a  man  whose  religion  was  the  re- 
ligion of  the  Jew.  It  was  narrow;  it  was 
Pharisaic;  it  was  traditional;  it  was  exclusive; 
it  was  selfish.  He  himself  reminds  us  that 
"after  the  strictest  sect  of  our  religion  I  lived 
a  Pharisee,"  that  he  was  "a  Hebrew  of  the 
Hebrews,  as  touching  the  law  a  Pharisee,  con- 
cerning zeal  persecuting  the  church,  touching 
the  righteousness  which  is  in  the  law,  blame- 
less." 

And  now  in  the  very  intensity  of  that  ex- 
clusive life  there  swept  over  the  man  a  change 
— a  breath — a  power  that  broke  down  all  bar- 
riers, that  overleaped  all  boundaries,  that  lifted 
and  pushed  back  the  horizons  until  the  social 
and  racial  and  religious  differences  among  men 
disappeared  and  there  emerged  instead  the 


ALLIANCE  AND  ENTENTE     57 

great  conception  of  the  spiritual  unity  of  the 
race.  Strange  indeed  it  is  now  to  hear  a 
bigoted  Jew  say  to  the  Romans  that  "there  is 
no  difference  between  the  Jew  and  the  Greek." 
Strange  indeed  it  is  to  hear  a  proud  aristocrat 
take  up  the  cause  of  the  oppressed  and  say, 
"Who  is  weak  and  I  am  not  weak?  Who  is 
injured  and  I  burn  not?"  Strange  indeed 
it  is  to  hear  a  haughty  Roman  say  that  "there 
is  neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  circumcision  nor  un- 
circumcision,  Barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  nor 
free."  I  shall  speak  a  little  later  of  the  power 
that  wrought  that  change,  but  the  change  it- 
self is  one  of  the  marvels  of  history.  Once 
he  had  thought  of  men  as  Romans  or  other- 
wise ;  now  he  thinks  of  them  as  the  citizens  of 
the  world.  Once  he  had  looked  upon  them 
as  possible  proselytes ;  now  he  looks  upon  them 
as  possible  saints.  Once  he  regarded  them  as 
aristocrats  or  otherwise;  now  he  regards  them 
as  the  souls  for  whom  Christ  died.  He  has 
caught  the  great  conception  of  the  unity  of 
mankind;  he  sees  the  solidarity,  the  oneness 
of  the  race,  its  common  sin,  its  common  sor- 
row, its  common  pain,  its  common  hope,  its 
common  destiny — and  from  the  moment  of 


58  WORLD  POWER 

that  vision  the  world  became  his  parish  and 
he  gave  himself  to  the  service  of  mankind.  As 
Frederick  W.  Myers  puts  it  finely  into  his 
lips: 

"Only  like  souls  I  see  the  folk  thereunder. 

Bound   who   should  conquer,   slaves   who   should  be 
kings, — 
Hearing  their  one  hope  with  an  empty  wonder. 
Sadly  contented  in  a  show  of  things: — 

"Then  with  a  rush  the  intolerable  craving 

Shivers  throughout  me  like  a  trumpet-call, — 
Oh  to  save  these !  to  perish  for  their  saving. 
Die  for  their  life,  be  offered  for  them  all!" 

The  Fact 

It  is  this  truth  so  mightily  enthroned  in  and 
gripping  the  mind  of  Paul,  that  we  emphasize 
to-night.  Yes,  there  is  such  a  thing  as  the 
solidarity  of  the  race!  Beneath  all  the  accu- 
mulated rubbish  of  our  modern  society  it  has 
been  oftentimes  obscured.  There  is  a  sense  in 
which  all  men  belong  to  each  other  and  belong 
to  the  whole  world  and  are  bound  together 
in  the  same  great  bundle  of  a  universal  life. 
There  are  theoretical  proofs  more  than  suf- 
ficient to  demonstrate  that.    Science,  with  its 


ALLIANCE  AND  ENTENTE     59 

root  idea  in  the  universality  of  law,  forces 
upon  us  the  thought  of  a  world  that  is  a  co- 
herent whole.  Psychology,  with  its  analysis 
of  the  mental  process,  declares  not  only  the 
essential  unity  of  the  individual  mind,  but, 
through  imitation  and  the  reaction  of  mind 
upon  mind,  the  presence  of  a  universal  con- 
sciousness. Philosophy,  if  it  starts  at  all,  must 
start  with  the  assumption  of  a  universe,  a  real 
unity  of  truth,  and  a  scheme  of  things  in  which 
no  being  or  phenomenon  is  unrelated  to  the 
whole.  And  what  theory  has  declared,  practi- 
cal Hfe  has  demonstrated.  Yielding  to  the 
impulse  of  their  common  interests,  we  find 
men  and  women  grouping  themselves  into 
families,  into  cities,  into  nations,  or  into 
groups  of  nations,  and  the  dream  of  the  Uto- 
pian poet  is  "the  parliament  of  man,  the  fed- 
eration of  the  world."  For  the  past  fifteen  or 
twenty  years  in  Europe  there  has  been  grow- 
ing up  one  group  of  nations — Germany,  Aus- 
tria, and  Italy — known  as  the  Triple  Alliance, 
bound  together  by  their  common  ambitions  and 
their  common  need.  On  the  other  hand  there 
has  been  shaping  another  group — Britain, 
France  and  Russia — in  the  Triple  Entente, 


60  WORLD  POWER 

bound  together  in  the  defence  and  preservation 
of  their  common  life.  And  not  in  our  life- 
time have  we  seen  or  shall  we  see  such  a  demon- 
stration as  this  war  has  furnished  of  the  soli- 
darity of  the  race.  The  first  blow  had  not  been 
struck  twenty-four  hours  till  it  was  felt  in  the 
farthest  corners  of  the  world.  It  was  not  the 
nations  who  were  involved  who  alone  were  af- 
fected, it  was  every  nation  on  the  face  of  the 
earth.  The  effect  was  felt  in  every  stock  ex- 
change, in  the  industrial  markets,  in  the  home 
life,  in  the  travelling  conveniences,  in  the  per- 
sonal relationships  of  men.  Because  of  that 
blow,  500  miles  away  a  sentry  took  his  place 
beside  a  wayside  bridge  in  a  Scottish  glen; 
5,000  miles  away  a  mother's  head  is  bowed  in 
grief  in  Vancouver;  a  child  on  the  other  side 
of  the  world  is  fatherless  in  Australia;  a  sol- 
dier joins  his  army  in  the  seclusion  of  Thibet. 
Because  of  that  blow  a  king  of  a  cannibal 
island  in  the  heart  of  the  Pacific  must  needs 
declare  his  neutrality  towards  the  nations  he 
has  never  seen.  The  vibrations  of  that  blow 
have  thrilled  into  the  last  and  farthest  fibre 
of  the  world's  life.  Nations  may  be  neutral, 
but  they  cannot  escape.    Homes  may  be  dis- 


ALLIANCE  AND  ENTENTE     61 

tant,  but  they  are  not  exempt.  O  yes,  there 
is  a  great  world  life  to  which  we  all  belong. 
There  may  not  be  a  common  language  of  the 
lips,  but  there  is  a  common  language  of  the 
soul.  The  yellow  Mongolian,  the  swarthy 
Latin,  the  fair  Saxon,  the  red-skinned  Indian, 
merge  all  their  colors  in  the  common  hue  of 
the  crimson  tides  of  the  heart,  and  manhood 
recognizes  manhood  by  the  swift  instinct  of 
the  mind. 

And  what  theory  has  propounded  and  life 
has  proved,  revelation  has  confirmed.  God  has 
made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  the  earth. 
We  are  members  one  of  another,  and  none  of 
us  liveth  unto  himself,  and  no  man  dieth  unto 
himself.  We  are  inextricably  bound  up  with 
one  another  in  joy  and  sorrow,  in  life  and 
death.  You  will  remember  how  Lowell  teaches 
that  in  some  of  the  most  vigorous  verse  he 
ever  wrote.  The  noble  deed  of  one  nation 
uplifts  the  whole  world,  for: 

"When  a  deed  is  done  for  freedom,  through  the  broad 

earth's    aching   breast 
Runs  a  thrill  of  joy  prophetic,  trembling  on  from  East 

to  West, 
And  the  slave  where'er  he  cowers  feels  the  soul  within 

him    climb 


62  WORLD  POWER 

To  the  awful  verge  of  manhood,  as  the  energy  sublime 
Of  a  century  bursts  full-blossomed  on  the  thorny  stem 
of  time." 

Ah,  yes,  but  the  reverse  is  also  true,  and  the 
tyranny  of  one  nation  crushes  farther  into  the 
earth  the  slave  of  every  land.  It  was  for  that 
reason  that  all  the  world  regarded  the  sacking 
of  Louvain,  not  only  as  a  crime  against  Bel- 
gium, but  as  a  crime  against  Humanity. 

"So  the   Evil's  triumph  sendeth,  with  a  terror  and  a 

chill. 
Under  continent  to  continent,  the  sense  of  coming  ill. 
And  the  slave  where'er  he  cowers  feels  his  sympathies 

with  God, 
In  hot  tear-drops  ebbing  earthward,  to  be  drunk  up  by 

the  sod. 
Till   a  corpse   crawls   round   unburied,   delving  in   the 

nobler  clod." 

And  that  is  possible  because  men  are  bound  to- 
gether, and  for  the  reason  that  when  you  smite 
one  life  you  smite  the  whole  corporate  life  of 
man. 

"For  mankind  is  one  in  spirit,  and  an  instinct  bears 

along, 
Round  the  earth's  electric  circle,  the  swift  flash  of  right 

or  wrong; 


ALLIANCE  AND  ENTENTE     63 

Whether  conscious  or  unconscious,  yet  Humanity's  vast 

frame. 
Through  its  ocean-sundered  fibres  feels  the  gush  of  joy 

or  shame: — 
In  the  gain  or  loss  of  one  race  all  the  rest  have  equal 

claim." 

The  Basis 

This  then  is  the  fact,  and  now,  in  the  sec- 
ond place,  we  ask  for  the  basis  on  which  it 
surely  rests.  What  is  this  binding  element 
in  human  life?  I  have  already  hinted  that  it 
lies  deeper  than  language  or  color  or  climate 
or  creed.  It  does  not  rest  upon  the  natural 
affinities  of  the  nations,  for  even  in  the  present 
war  many  of  the  natural  affinities  are  de- 
stroyed and  unnatural  antagonisms  or  un- 
natural alliances  have  risen  up.  Britain  and 
Germany,  oftentimes  the  allies  of  the  past  in 
the  cause  of  liberty,  are  ranged  against  each 
other  to-day,  but  the  time  will  come  again, 
we  trust,  when  the  true  Germany  will  stand 
once  more  as  the  champion  of  freedom.  Rus- 
sia and  Japan,  fighting  a  few  years  ago  to  the 
bitter  death  in  the  Orient,  have  joined  hands 
in  a  common  cause.  South  Africa  twelve  years 
ago  was  slaughtering  Britain's  sons  on  the 


64  WORLD  POWER 

South  African  veldt  and  now  is  sending  her 
sons  to  the  defence  of  the  Empire.  No!  No! 
This  soHdarity  of  the  race  hes  deeper  than 
any  consideration  I  have  named.  If  you  will 
note  two  phrases  in  my  text  you  will  see  how 
Paul  reveals  the  bonds  that  bind  the  race  in 
one.  In  the  first  part  of  the  verse  he  tells 
us  that  man  was  created  in  the  likeness  of 
God,  "after  the  image  of  Him  that  created 
him";  in  the  last  part  of  the  verse  he  tells  us 
that  all  the  distinctions  are  blotted  out  because 
Christ  is  present  in  human  life  and  "Christ  is 
all  and  in  all."  Here,  then,  are  the  founda- 
tions on  which  the  solidarity  of  the  race  abides 
— first,  because  the  human  is  created  in  the  im- 
age of  the  Divine,  and  second,  because  the 
Divine  is  incarnate  in  the  image  of  the  hu- 
man. Take  this  congregation  here  to-night. 
You  are  strangers  to  me,  many  of  you,  and 
most  of  you  to  one  another,  and  yet  we  are 
all  bound  together  in  a  solidarity  of  life.  It  is 
not  because  we  live  in  the  same  city,  or  speak 
the  same  language,  or  seek  the  same  interests. 
It  is  because  that  in  me  and  in  you  and  in  every 
one  of  us  there  is  the  image  of  God.  It  may 
be,  and  it  is,  fearfully  defaced  and  scarred. 


ALLIANCE  AND  ENTENTE     65 

but  nevertheless  the  traces  of  the  image  re- 
main. We  have  something  in  common,  and 
it  is  the  shattered  heritage  of  the  Divine.  Some 
of  you  will  say  that  the  only  common  quality 
we  have  is  sin,  and  it  is  true  we  all  have  that 
quality — no  man  without  it — but  man  has  sin 
because  man  has  a  moral  nature  that  is  capa- 
ble of  good  or  evil,  and  man  has  a  moral  na- 
ture because  he  was  created  in  the  image  of 
God. 

But  that  is  not  all.  There  is  another  unify- 
ing bond — it  is  the  presence  of  Christ.  You 
talk  about  the  solidarity  of  the  race.  What 
if  God  Himself  were  to  step  into  the  soli- 
darity !  And  this  He  has  done.  "A  God  must 
mingle  with  the  game."  Christ  is  the  ideal 
head  of  humanity.  Their  common  hopes  and 
fears  and  aspirations,  their  sin  and  their  salva- 
tion, are  all  undertaken  by  Him.  He  has  as- 
sumed the  liabilities  of  the  race.  He  has  taken 
over  the  spiritual  fortunes  of  the  whole  world. 
When  you  remember  that  every  man  in  the 
world  is  a  man  for  whom  Christ  died,  that 
every  man  in  the  world  is  a  man  in  whom  Christ 
may  reproduce  Himself,  that  every  man  in  the 
world  is  a  man  for  whom  Christ  alone  has  fur- 


66  WORLD  POWER 

nished  the  opportunity  to  realize  the  best  and 
the  highest  and  be  changed  into  His  image 
— then  you  begin  to  see  how  for  humanity 
"Christ  is  all  and  in  all,"  how  we  are  bound 
together  not  only  by  the  failure  of  the  first 
Adam,  but  by  the  victory  of  the  last  Adam, 
and  how  it  may  be  true  that  in  Him  "all  things 
are  yours;  whether  Paul,  or  ApoUos,  or  Ce- 
phas, or  the  world,  or  life,  or  death,  or  things 
present,  or  things  to  come;  all  are  yours;  and 
ye  are  Christ's;  and  Christ  is  God's." 

The  Implications 

The  implications  arising  from  this  great 
truth  are  too  many  and  far-reaching  to  be  fol- 
lowed out  to-night.  But  there  are  two  of  them 
that  I  wish  to  emphasize  before  I  close — the 
one  is  the  great  obligation  resting  upon  each 
of  us  because  of  our  place  in  the  solid  world, 
the  other  is  the  great  hope  coming  to  us  be- 
cause of  God's  place  in  the  same  solidarity 
of  life. 

1.  We  get  a  glimpse  of  the  tremendous  re- 
sponsibility that  rests  upon  each  individual  life. 
Because  of  the  solidarity  of  the  race  it  lies 


ALLIANCE  AND  ENTENTE     67 

within  our  power  to  help  to  make  or  mar  the 
world.  "Our  echoes  roll  from  soul  to  soul  and 
go  forever  and  forever."  It  is  impossible  for 
you  to  cheat  a  man  in  business  in  Toronto 
without  affecting  the  life  of  China.  It  is  im- 
possible to  yield  to  greed,  or  indulge  in  sin,  or 
cherish  vanity,  or  wallow  in  lust,  without  strik- 
ing a  blow  at  the  spiritual  interests  of  the  Hot- 
tentots of  Africa.  And,  thank  God,  the  other 
side  is  also  true.  You  cannot  live  a  noble  life 
in  a  common  hamlet  without  blessing  the  life 
of  India ;  you  cannot  be  unselfish  in  motive  and 
pure  in  thought  without  uplifting  the  life  of 
the  whole  world. 

"No  stream  from  its  source 
Flows  seaward^  how  lonely  soever  its  course, 
But  some  land  is  gladdened.     No  star  ever  rose 
'  And  set  without  influence  somewhere." 

I  want  to  say  that  to  the  very  weakest  and 
lowliest  life  here.  I  want  to  say  it  to  the  timid 
little  mother  who  creeps  out  into  the  big  world 
from  her  humble  home,  thinking  that  she 
counts  for  nothing.  You  do  not  count  for 
nothing;  you  count  for  everything;  as  any 
one  of  us  may  count  for  eveiything  in  the  good 


68  WORLD  POWER 

of  the  world.  Ah,  it  is  a  solemn  thing  to  live! 
To-day  the  sober  judgment  and  moral  sense  of 
the  civilized  nations  have  passed  the  verdict  of 
guilt  upon  the  Prussian  military  party  and 
their  philosophy  of  might.  And  they  are  not 
mistaken.  It  was  Germany  that  lighted  the 
fuse  that  has  fired  the  crowded  magazine  of 
modern  civilization.  The  perpetration  of  that 
crime  lies  at  her  door.  But  while  all  that  is 
true,  let  us  remember  that  we  are  not  guilt- 
less. We  are  not  guiltless  as  a  nation  nor  as 
individuals.  We  have  all  had  our  share  in  pre- 
paring the  conditions  that  have  brought  about 
the  war.  In  our  love  of  ease  and  power,  in 
our  greed  and  grasping,  in  our  adherence  to 
false  standards,  in  our  departure  from  the  sim- 
ple life,  in  our  riot  of  gain  and  pleasure,  we 
have  fostered  those  carnal  forces  and  have  pre- 
pared the  way.  It  is  for  that  reason  that  we 
ought  to  humble  ourselves  before  God  in  re- 
pentance. And  our  repentance  will  count. 
We  can  help  to  prepare  the  way  for  peace. 
To-day  we  pray  for  peace  and  long  for  peace 
that  is  lasting.  My  friend,  the  beginning  of 
that  must  begin  with  you.  If  you  want  to 
count  for  peace  you  must  become  in  yourself 


ALLIANCE  AND  ENTENTE     69 

a  centre  of  peace.  The  peace  of  God  must 
enter  your  life.  You  must  adopt  the  stand- 
ards of  Christ  in  your  thinking,,  the  spirit  of 
Christ  in  your  heart.  Your  best  hope  of  set- 
ting up  the  kingdom  in  Europe  is  to  set  up 
the  kingdom  in  your  own  soul.  You  must  put 
away  your  selfishness,  abandon  your  sin,  bend 
your  judgments  to  the  standards  of  Jesus. 
It  is  not  imi^ossible.  By  faith  in  Christ  Jesus 
and  by  the  power  of  His  Holy  Sjjirit,  it  was 
done  in  Paul  and  it  may  be  done  in  you.  I 
speak  to  you,  everyone  and  each  one,  each  by 
each,  when  I  say  that  so  long  as  you  refuse 
to  surrender  your  whole  heart  to  Christ  and 
live  by  His  laws,  to  that  degree  you  are  a 
menace  to  the  peace  of  the  world  and  a  bar- 
rier to  the  progress  of  the  race. 

2.  But  out  of  this  principle  we  get  a  glimpse 
of  a  great  hope.  It  is  this,  that  God  is  in  "the 
game."  He  is  a  member  of  the  race.  He  is 
in  its  solidarity.  He  is  not  separated  from  it. 
You  wonder  what  He  thinks  of  it  and  how  He 
bears  it.  Man,  you  forget  your  gospel !  Look 
you  at  Calvary  and  you  will  see  what  He  thinks 
of  it  and  how  He  bears  it.  He  has  put  Him- 
self beneath  the  crushing  burden.    He  has  let 


70  WORLD  POWER 

the  world's  great  pain  press  upon  His  own 
heart.  He  suffers  in  it  and  for  it  and  in  His 
suffering  he  redeems  it.  He  has  joined  up  His 
fortunes  with  our  fortunes.  The  hazardous 
fortunes  of  the  race  are  in  His  hand,  and  He 
will  not  suffer  them  to  fail.  We  shall  not  ut- 
terly be  lost.  And  in  our  great  Head  of  the 
race,  its  true  Head,  we  shall  see  the  gathering, 
some  day,  of  all  peoples  and  nations  and  kin- 
dreds and  tongues  in  the  solid  and  holy  unity 
of  a  redeemed  family,  and  happy  shall  we  be 
if  through  Christ  we  shall  be  found  within  their 
midst. 


IV 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN:  THE  GOD 
OF    HISTORY 


IV 

A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN:  THE  GOD 
OF   HISTORY, 

Text: — "And  I  saw  an  angel  standing  in  the  sun." — 
Revelation  19: 17. 

The  phrase  that  has  suggested  our  subject 
for  to-night  is  one  that  has  been  on  the  hps  of 
the  German  people  for  the  past  ten  or  fifteen 
years.  We  are  not  quite  certain  who  coined 
the  phrase  in  the  beginning,  but  it  is  general- 
ly supposed  that  it  sprang  out  of  the  fertile 
brain  of  the  Kaiser  himself.  Over  and  over 
again  he  has  repeated  it  to  his  people.  Over 
and  over  again  the  world  has  been  told  that 
Germany  must  have  her  "place  in  the  sun." 
And  not  only  are  we  uncertain  about  its  ex- 
act origin,  but  we  are  also  uncertain  about  its 
exact  meaning.  It  is  one  of  those  subtle  phrases 
that  expresses  the  hidden  quality  of  a  nation's 
character  and  unconsciously  uncovers  the  se- 
cret purpose  and  driving  motive  that  sends 

73 


74  WORLD  POWER 

her  on  her  way.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that 
in  its  first  use  it  simply  signified  the  desire  on 
the  part  of  Germany  to  have  an  equal  chance 
with  all  the  other  great  nations  of  the  world. 
She  wanted  the  opportunity  to  develop  her 
resources,  to  perfect  her  institutions,  to  expand 
her  influence,  and  to  hve  out  the  genius  of  her 
life.  There  was  a  sense  (though  no  one  else 
could  be  blamed)  in  which  she  was  handi- 
capped in  the  opportunity  to  live.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  in  her  present  form  she  came 
into  the  arena  at  a  very  late  date,  when  all  the 
best  opportunities  were  gone  and  the  place  of 
influence  held  by  the  older  and  stronger  na- 
tions of  the  world.  She  came  at  a  time  when 
the  national  and  international  institutions 
were  more  or  less  settled  and  the  hard  and  fast 
lines  of  their  development  were  long  and  deep- 
ly laid.  She  came  at  a  time  when  nearly  all 
the  other  great  nations  had  reached  maturity 
or  were  well  upon  the  way.  She  came  with  a 
strong,  young,  buoyant  life,  with  a  rapidly  in- 
creasing population  at  a  time  when  there  was 
no  place  to  put  it  because  all  the  vacant  terri- 
tory of  the  world  had  been  pre-empted  by  other 
European  powers  and  there  was  no  open  door 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN         75 

for  the  colonial  expansion  of  the  German  race. 
In  other  words,  the  other  members  of  the 
European  family  had  basked  in  the  sunshine 
of  a  great  opportunity.  They  had  had  their 
share;  Germany  felt  that  she  had  been  over- 
shadowed— crowded  into  the  twilight:  and 
from  this  time  on  she  must  have  an  equal 
chance ;  she  must  have  "a  place  in  the  sun." 

But  if  that  was  the  original  idea  of  the 
phrase  it  soon  took  on  a  dark  and  sinister 
meaning.  Not  only  did  Germany  want  "a 
place  in  the  sun,"  but  she  wanted  the  most  cen- 
tral and  commanding  place  of  all.  She  demand- 
ed that  she  should  stand  in  the  centre.  The 
full  meridian  glory  must  fall  on  her,  and  her 
alone.  Her  shadow  would  stretch  itself  across 
the  world.  If  other  nations  lived  at  all,  they 
must  live  through  sufferance.  They  must  pass 
their  days  in  the  shadow  of  that  one  great 
figure  that  claimed  the  commanding  and  con- 
spicuous position  in  the  sunlight  of  civiliza- 
tion. Indeed,  she  herself  would  be  the  sun- 
light of  the  world.  And  so  what  was  a  fair 
chance  passed  into  an  arrogant  demand;  what 
was  a  privilege  became  a  right;  what  was  an 
equal  share  became  the  whole  ownership.   All 


76  WORLD  POWER 

else  must  stand  in  the  shadow.  Her  motto  be- 
came: "Prussia  at  the  head  of  Germany;  Ger- 
many at  the  head  of  Europe;  Europe  at  the 
head  of  the  world."  To  put  it  briefly,  there 
must  be  one  great  controlling  element  in  the 
life  of  mankind,  and  that  one  element  must  be 
the  German  power.    "A  place  in  the  sun!'* 

Well,  our  text  reminds  us  that  nineteen  hun- 
dred years  ago  in  a  very  striking  and  beauti- 
ful figure,  John  the  apostle  told  us  about  this 
"place  in  the  sun,"  and  who  it  was  that  held 
it,  and  how  He  secured  it,  and  what  He 
achieved  through  the  power  that  He  had 
gained.  "I  saw  an  angel  standing  in  the  sun." 
In  these  closing  chapters  of  the  Revelation 
there  passes  before  the  eyes  of  John  the  vision 
of  the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth.  He  gets 
a  glimpse  of  the  perfect  civilization  that  is  to 
be.  Behind  it  all  and  within  it  and  through 
it  and  dominating  all  he  discerns  a  power  that 
holds  the  central  place, — a  power  that  is  the 
guiding  and  moving  spirit  of  history.  "An 
angel  standing  in  the  sun!"  I  do  not  think  we 
are  supposed  to  take  John's  words  in  any  lit- 
eral sense.  The  "sun"  with  him,  for  the  most 
part,  is  symbolic  of  the  spiritual  light  and 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN         77 

glory  and  blessing  attendant  on  the  reign  of 
Christ.  The  "angel,"  for  the  most  part,  is  sym- 
bolic of  some  Divine  presence  that  pervades 
the  church,  or  the  Kingdom,  or  the  world,  or 
human  life.  It  is  a  very  significant  thing  that 
close  to  my  text,  and  in  the  very  next  breath, 
and  indeed  throughout  the  chapter,  that  Di- 
vine presence  is  identified  with  the  radiant  Son 
of  God.  And  so  when  John  says  that  he  "saw 
an  angel  standing  in  the  sun,"  he  means  that 
in  the  world  there  is  a  Divine  presence  out  of 
which  all  its  glory  springs;  that  there  is  some- 
thing behind  the  world  of  matter  that  we  can- 
not see  and  cannot  account  for;  that  beneath 
all  the  network  of  law  there  seems  to  stand 
in  the  dignity  of  omnipotence  a  something  that 
is  higher  than  law;  that  there  is  a  guiding  mind 
in  all  our  history;  that  there  is  a  commanding 
will  in  human  events;  that  there  is  a  purpose 
under  which  life  will  yield  its  meaning;  that 
in  the  motion  of  a  butterfly's  wings  and  in  the 
mighty  cataclysms  of  the  race  there  is  a  rea- 
son so  pure  and  great  that  every  event  is  justi- 
fiable; that  history  is  so  religious  that  it  is  di- 
vine. In  a  word,  he  means  that  God  stands 
at  the  centre  of  the  universe.    It  is  He  who 


78  WORLD  POWER 

has  taken  the  "place  in  the  sun."  His  is  the 
hidden  energy;  His  is  the  motive  power;  He 
is  the  controlling"  and  guiding  mind ;  He  is  the 
distant  goal  to  which  all  things  move  and  in 
whom  all  things  consist;  He  is  the 

"One  God,  one  law,  one  element, 
And  one  far  off  Divine  event, 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 

God  in  Nature 

When  we  begin  to  examine  this  truth,  we 
see  at  once  how  clear  is  its  proof  in  the  realm 
of  nature.  We  have  all  been  aware,  at  least 
at  times,  that  there  is  something  behind  the 
beauty  and  ruggedness,  the  moods  and  tem- 
pers of  nature  that  we  cannot  see,  an  invisible 
presence  that  breathes  through  and  breaks  out 
from  it  to  impress  itself  upon  our  minds.  All 
the  poets  have  been  conscious  of  their  inability 
to  quite  define  or  describe  the  mystic  spirit  that 
is  there.  Their  songs  have  not  been  strong 
enough  or  deep  enough  or  subtle  enough  in 
feeling  to  catch  the  liquid  melody  of  a  run- 
ning brook.  They  have  never  been  able  to  write 
verses  that  could  match  "the  rhythm  of  the  fall- 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN         79 

ing  rain."  They  are  helpless  to  fashion  music 
that  can  approach  the  majesty  of  the  deep- 
toned  thunder.  The  silences  that  men  create  can 
never  out-silence  in  stillness  "the  pathway  of 
the  snow."  Against  the  background  of  light 
there  emerges  a  something  ineffably  more 
glorious.  Within  and  behind  and  speaking 
through  nature  is  nature's  great  infinity,  which 
is  God.  And  that  is  what  men  like  Tennyson 
hint  at  when  in  the  beauty  of  a  modest  flower 
they  find  themselves  confronted  by  the  unex- 
plored depths  of  a  nameless  presence.  It  is 
"the  angel  in  the  sun." 

Flower  in  the  crannied  wall, 

I  pluck  you  out  of  the  crannies, 

I  hold  you  here,  root  and  all,  in  my  hand. 

Little  flower — but  if  I  could  vmderstand 

What  you  are,  root  and  all,  and  all  in  all, 

I  should  know  what  God  and  man  is. 

God  in  Human  Experience 

Carry  this  text  into  the  realm  of  human  ex- 
perience and  let  His  saints  bear  witness  how 
in  their  joys  and  sorrows,  their  prosperities 
and  adversities,  they  have  been  able  to  trace 
the  footsteps  of  a  Presence  that  ruled  and 


80  WORLD  POWER 

overruled,  that  guided  and  controlled,  and  even 
unveiled  His  face  through  the  mantle  of  the 
darkest  cloud.  Hear  the  Psalmist  say:  "It  is 
good  for  me  that  I  have  been  afflicted  that  I 
might  learn  thy  statutes.  Before  I  was  af- 
flicted I  went  astray ;  but  now  have  I  kept  thy 
word."  What  does  this  mean  if  not  that  this 
man  found  God  in  all  his  life,  transmuting 
even  the  darkest  sorrow  into  the  Divinest  bless- 
ing. Hear  Paul,  beaten,  stoned,  imprisoned, 
shipwrecked,  robbed  of  friends,  home,  com- 
forts— hear  Paul  say:  "But  I  would  have  you 
understand,  brethren,  that  the  things  which 
happened  unto  me  have  fallen  out  rather  unto 
the  furtherance  of  the  gospel ;  so  that  my  bonds 
in  Christ  are  manifest  in  all  the  palace  and  in 
all  other  places."  To  Paul  there  was  a  Divine 
purpose  even  in  his  chains.  Or  hear  Frances 
Ridley  Havergal,  from  a  bed  of  sickness,  with 
not  a  moment's  surcease  of  pain,  say : 

I  take  this  pain,  Lord  Jesus,  from  Thine  own  hand. 

The  strength  to  bear  it  bravely  Thou  wilt  command. 
****** 

'Tis  Thy  dear  hand,  O  Saviour,  that  presseth  sore. 

The  hand  that  bears  the  nail-prints  for  evermore. 

And  now  beneath  its  shadow,  hidden  by  Thee, 
The  pressu-re  only  tells  me  Thou  lovest  me! 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN         81 

These  are  the  glimpses  of  those  who  have  read 
the  secret  meaning  of  human  life,  who  have 
learned  to  know  that  "all  things  work  to- 
gether for  good  to  those  who  love  the  Lord," 
who  with  eyes  that  were  cleansed  of  the  dust 
of  earth  and  deepened  in  spiritual  penetra- 
tion have  seen  the  vision  of  an  "angel  stand- 
ing in  the  sun." 

God  in  History 

Take  with  you  this  truth  out  into  the  wider 
tracts  of  the  history  of  the  race,  and  its  lines 
are  writ  so  large  that  "he  who  runs  may  read." 
I  do  not  deny  that  many  a  man  at  many  a  time 
has  found  it  hard  to  trace  the  footsteps  of  God 
in  the  ebbing  and  flowing  of  the  human  prog- 
ress. So  dark,  so  forbidding,  so  puzzling  have 
been  the  prospect  and  the  retrospect  alike  that 
men  have  been  led  to  ask,  "Is  there  any  God  at 
all?  Is  there  any  guiding  mind?  Is  there  any 
dominating  will?  Is  there  any  loving  heart? 
Is  there  any  holy  end?  Is  there  any  angel  in 
the  sun?"  To  all  these  fear-born  questions 
the  long  verdict  of  history  gives  only  one  re- 
ply— there  is!    Even  a  passing  glance  at  a  few 


82  WORLD  POWER 

of  the  great  turning  points  of  the  race  will 
serve  to  make  that  clear.  Never  was  there  a 
day  so  dark  in  the  history  of  Israel  as  the  day 
of  the  Exile.  The  wistful  home  hunger  of  the 
patriot  was  eating  out  their  hearts.  Their 
beautiful  Jerusalem  was  in  ruins,  their  tem- 
ple desecrated,  their  walls  battered  down,  the 
ploughshare  of  the  conqueror  had  gone  over 
the  ground  on  which  their  homes  had  stood. 
And  they  themselves  had  been  driven  away 
from  their  native  land,  away  to  the  low,  wide 
plains  about  Babylon,  and  there  were  no  moun- 
tains as  at  home,  to  break  the  long  weary  mo- 
notony of  the  skyline  and  speak  to  them  of  the 
everlasting  God  who  was  round  about  His  peo- 
ple, and  there  were  no  dashing,  sparkling 
mountain  streams  to  sing  the  message  of  His 
care.  It  was  little  wonder  that  after  their  fit- 
ful attempts  to  cheer  their  hopeless  and  deject- 
ed spirits  they  "hanged  their  harps  upon  the 
willows,"  for  "how  shall  we  sing  the  Lord's 
song,"  said  they,  in  a  strange  and  captive  land? 
Yet  history  has  justified  it  now  as  faith  justi- 
fied it  long  since.  It  proved  to  be  the  salva- 
tion of  Israel.  In  that  experience  they  were 
cleansed  and  chastened.     In  that  experience 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN         83 

they  came  to  a  new  recognition  of  God. 
Through  that  experience  they  were  prepared 
to  play  their  part  in  the  great  scheme  of  re- 
demption to  which  they  were  so  vitally  impor- 
tant in  the  purposes  of  God.  And  if  you  want 
to  see  further  how  God  can  step  into  history, 
recall  the  instrument  by  which  He  broke  the 
power  of  Babylon  and  set  His  people  free. 
Much  is  said  to-day  about  the  strange  alliance 
between  civilized  England  and  so-called  semi- 
barbarous  Russia.  It  is  not  the  first  time  that 
Jehovah  has  taken  a  strange  weapon  to  fight 
His  battles.  In  the  case  of  Israel  He  laid  hold 
of  a  pagan  people.  He  summoned  Cyrus,  a 
pagan  king,  a  leader  of  a  nation  who  were  not 
Jehovah- worshippers,  "a  ravenous  bird  from 
the  East,"  as  Isaiah  called  him,  and  for  the 
time  being  he  became  the  sword  of  vengeance 
in  the  hand  of  that  angel  that  standeth  in  the 
sun. 

Or  take  a  second  instance.  Perhaps  the 
mightiest  shock  that  Europe  yet  has  known 
was  felt  in  the  downfall  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
When  the  disaster  came,  it  was  thought  that 
the  gods  were  angry  and  that  Christianity, 
newly  accepted  in  the  Empire,  had  proved  a 


84  WORLD  POWER 

failure.  But  in  that  dark  day  Augustine 
wrote  his  famous  treatise  on  "The  City  of 
God,"  in  which  he  proved  the  reverse.  It  was 
the  clearing  of  the  foundations  for  the  build- 
ing of  a  nobler  structure.  It  was  the  Eternal 
Builder  sweeping  away  the  debris  that  the 
Eternal  City — the  true  Eternal  City — might 
rise.  Out  of  that  cataclysm  came  a  new  lib- 
erty for  the  individual,  the  opening  of  new 
doorways  for  the  doctrine  of  the  Christ,  and 
the  assertion  of  those  eternal  principles  which 
underlie  the  whole  superstructure  of  our  free 
institutions.  And  in  that  turning  point  of  his- 
tory one  can  discern  again  the  overshadowing 
presence  of  that  One  who  sets  the  bounds  on 
the  ambitions  of  men,  and  orders  all  things 
after  the  counsels  of  His  own  will.  "And 
now,"  says  Kingsley,  speaking  of  that  Gothic 
invasion  under  which  Rome  went  down,  "and 
now,  gentlemen,  was  this  vast  campaign 
fought  without  a  general?  If  Trafalgar  could 
not  be  won  without  the  mind  of  a  Nelson,  or 
Waterloo  without  the  mind  of  a  Wellington, 
was  there  no  one  mind  to  lead  these  innumer- 
able armies,  on  whose  success  depended  the  fu- 
ture of  the  whole  human  race?    Did  no  one 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  85 

marshal  them  in  that  impregnable  convex 
front,  from  the  Euxine  to  the  North  Sea?  No 
one  guide  them  to  the  two  great  strategic  cen- 
tres of  the  Black  Forest  and  Trieste  ?  No  one 
cause  them,  blind  barbarians  without  maps  or 
science,  to  follow  those  rules  of  war  without 
which  victory  in  a  protracted  struggle  is  im- 
possible, and  by  the  pressure  of  the  Huns  be- 
hind, force  on  their  flagging  myriads  to  an 
enterprise  which  their  simplicity  fancied  at  first 
beyond  the  power  of  mortal  men?  Believe  it 
who  will ;  I  cannot. 

"But  while  I  believe  that  not  a  stone  or  a 
handful  of  mud  gravitates  into  its  place  with- 
out the  will  of  God ;  that  it  was  ordained  ages 
since  into  what  particular  spot  each  grain  of 
gold  should  be  washed  down  from  an  Austra- 
lian quartz  reef,  that  a  certain  man  might  find 
it  at  a  certain  moment  and  crisis  of  his  life — 
if  I  be  superstitious  enough  (as,  thank  God, 
I  am)  to  hold  that  creed,  shall  I  not  believe 
that  though  this  great  war  had  no  general  upon 
earth,  it  may  have  had  a  general  in  Heaven; 
and  that  in  spite  of  all  their  sins  the  hosts  of 
our  forefathers  were  the  hosts  of  God." 

Or  take  another  notable  instance.    One  hun- 


86  WORLD  POWER 

dred  years  ago  the  storm  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution broke  over  Europe,  yet  the  lapse  of  one 
hundred  years  has  enabled  us  to  see  with  clearer 
vision  that  it  marked  the  downfall  of  an  old 
system  that  gave  way  to  the  rising  of  a  new. 
There  was  an  angel  in  the  sun.  God  compelled 
events  to  serve  Him.  How  wonderful  it  is 
that  at  the  very  moment  when  these  old  sys- 
tems were  crashing  into  dust  He  was  prepar- 
ing and  initiating  the  new  movements  that 
would  bless  the  centuries.  In  the  midst  of 
that  storm  came  the  modern  missionary  cru- 
sade when  William  Carey  led  the  attack  of 
Christianity  against  the  paganism  of  India; 
in  the  midst  of  that  time  of  stress  was  initiated 
the  great  Sunday  School  movement;  in  the 
midst  of  the  same  stormy  days  emerged  the 
Bible  Society  that  has  sown  the  seed  of  the 
Scriptures  broadcast  throughout  the  world. 
It  was  evident  to  all  who  had  eyes  to  see  that 
there  was  an  angel  in  the  sun.  Writing  of 
Waterloo,  which  was  the  culmination  of  that 
gigantic  struggle,  Victor  Hugo  says,  "This 
madness,  this  terror,  this  falling  to  ruins  of 
the  highest  bravery  which  ever  astonished  his- 
tory, can  that  be  without  cause?  No,  the  shad- 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN  87 

ow  of  an  enormous  right  hand  rested  on 
Waterloo.  It  is  the  day  of  destiny.  A  power 
above  man  controlled  that  day.  Hence  the 
loss  of  mind  in  dismay;  hence  all  these  great 
souls  yielding  up  their  swords.  Those  who  had 
conquered  Europe  fell  to  the  ground  having 
nothing  more  to  say  or  to  do,  feeling  a  terri- 
ble presence  in  the  darkness.  That  day  the 
perspective  of  the  human  race  changed.  Wat- 
erloo is  the  hinge  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
The  disappearance  of  the  great  man  was  neces- 
sary for  the  advent  of  the  great  century.  One, 
to  whom  there  is  no  reply,  took  it  in  charge. 
The  panic  of  heroes  is  explained.  In  the  battle 
of  Waterloo  there  is  more  than  a  cloud,  there 
is  a  meteor.  God  passed  over  it."  What  is 
this  but  the  attempt  of  a  brilliant  man  to  say 
what  John  taught  us  long  ago,  that  there  is 
"an  angel  standing  in  the  sun." 

The  Two  Lessons 

And  now  with  that  truth  firmly  established 
there  are  two  lessons  we  must  learn: 

1.  We  must  learn  to  take  a  long  view  of  his- 
tory.   God  moves  across  the  ages  with  stately 


88  WORLD  POWER 

step,  and  they  who  would  understand  Him 
must  read  His  records  with  the  light  of  two 
eternities  upon  them.  Emerson  was  fond  of 
saying  that  the  supreme  lesson  of  life  is  learn- 
ing "what  the  centuries  say  against  the  hours." 
With  Jehovah  a  thousand  years  is  as  a  day 
and  a  day  as  a  thousand  years.  We  are  too 
near  to  the  great  events  of  to-day  to  be  sure 
that  we  read  them  aright.  The  roar  of  cannon 
deafens  us;  the  dust  of  battle  blinds  us;  the 
rush  of  events  dazzles  us;  and  the  passion  of 
the  hour  carries  us  by  storm.  Momentary  vic- 
tory may  not  mean  success ;  momentary  defeat 
may  not  mean  failure.  Above  the  mighty 
drama  is  God.  He  has  taken  His  place  in  the 
sun.  It  is  occupied  by  no  other.  At  times  it 
may  seem  otherwise,  but  it  is  not  so. 

"Careless  seems  the  great  Avenger;  history's  pages  but 

record 
One  death-grapple  in  the  darkness  'twixt  old  systems 

and  the  Word; 
Truth  forever  on  the  scaffold.  Wrong  forever  on  the 

throne — 
Yet  that  scaffold  sways  the  Future,  and,  behind  the 

dim  unknown, 
Standeth  God  within  the  shadow,  keeping  watch  above 

His  own." 


A  PLACE  IN  THE  SUN         89 

2.  Again  let  us  learn  to  take  a  clear  view  of 
Christ  in  relation  to  the  scheme  of  life.  He  is 
the  angel  that  standeth  in  the  sun.  He  is  to 
us  the  manifestation  of  the  Divine  presence, 
"the  effulgence  of  God's  glory  from  the  ex- 
press image  of  His  person."  All  things  re- 
volve about  Him.  All  things  must  exist  for 
Him.  He  must  reign  until  He  has  put  all 
enemies  under  His  feet.  At  the  very  darkest 
hour  of  all  He  stepped  into  human  history  in 
the  flesh.  He  is  there,  as  John  tells  us,  by  the 
right  of  His  cross.  He  has  on  His  vesture  and 
on  His  thigh  a  name  written.  King  of  Kings 
and  Lord  of  Lords.  He  is  the  centre  of  all 
created  things.  He  is  the  one  who  will  con- 
trol. Around  Him  the  nations  must  bow  in 
submission.  Make  no  mistake.  It  is  not  Ger- 
many or  another  who  will  hold  the  place  in 
the  sun.  It  is  He  whose  right  it  is  to  rule.  It 
is  He  who  has  the  last  word  of  hf  e.  We  stand 
or  fall  by  Him  and  our  relation  to  Him. 

"He  hath  sounded  forth  the  trumpet 
That  shall  never  call  retreat. 

He  is  sifting  out  the  hearts  of  men. 
Before  His  judgment  seat. 

O !  be  swift  my  soul  to  meet  Him; 
Be  jubilant,  my  feet. 

For  God  is  marching  on." 


V 

THE  DAY!    THE  DAY!  :    THE 
NEMESIS   OF  JUSTICE 


V 

THE  DAY!    THE  DAY!  :    THE 
NEMESIS   OF   JUSTICE 

Text: — "Woe  unto  you  that  desire  the  day  of  the 
Lord:  to  what  end  is  it  for  you?  the  day  of  the  Lord  is 
darkness  and  not  light." — Amos  5:  18. 

"The  day!"  "The  day  of  the  Lord !"  "The 
day  of  the  Lord  is  darkness  and  not  Hght." 
These  are  ominous  words  and  strangely  mod- 
em as  they  drift  across  the  twenty-seven  cen- 
turies that  lie  between.  They  were  uttered  by 
Amos  at  a  critical  hour  in  the  history  of  Israel. 
It  was  a  time  of  impending  national  danger. 
He  himself  tells  us  that  the  vision  came  "two 
years  before  the  earthquake,"  and  at  once  you 
realize  that  he  is  thinking  not  so  much  of  any 
quaking  of  earth  as  some  great  cataclysm  of 
the  nation.  The  truth  is  that  the  storm  of 
war  was  about  to  break  over  Israel.  Amos 
knows  that  it  must  come.  His  own  heart  tells 
him  so.  His  God  tells  him  so.  Events  tell  him 
so.  The  signs  have  been  ripening  these  many 
years.    The  sound  of  the  conflict  is  already  in 

93 


94  WORLD  POWER 

his  ears.  It  is  coming  in  the  marching  hosts 
of  Assyria,  who  have  long  been  preparing  for 
the  fray.  Already  the  force  of  their  mighty 
hand  has  been  felt  in  the  West,  and  Amos,  who 
knew  how  to  read  the  signs  of  the  times,  knew 
that  it  meant  the  day  of  sorrow  for  Israel,  an 
Israel  who  by  her  sin  deserved  the  wrath  and 
the  justice  of  God. 

Besides,  it  was  not  Israel  alone  that  would 
be  involved.  Once  the  blow  was  struck  it 
would  smite  the  whole  circle  of  nations — Syria, 
Philistia,  Phoenicia,  Edom,  Ammon,  Moab, — 
north,  south,  east,  west,  the  rage  of  battle 
would  spread.  And  before  he  announces  what 
the  doom  of  Israel  would  be,  he  takes  a  few 
moments  to  make  it  clear  why  the  sword  of 
justice  would  fall  on  the  nations  round  about. 
There  is  something  tremendously  modern 
about  this,  something  that  silences  all  the 
boast  about  the  progress  of  our  civilization. 
Syria  will  be  punished,  says  the  prophet,  be- 
cause she  has  been  guilty  of  wanton  cruelty  in 
war,  cruelty  that  Amos  can  only  compare  with 
the  driving  of  sharp  and  heavj^  threshing 
boards  over  the  ripened  corn;  Philistia  and 
Phoenicia  will  be  punished  because  of  their 


THE  DAY!    THE  DAY!  95 

heartless  slave-trade  that  stirred  the  indigna- 
tion of  God;  Edom  will  be  punished  because 
of  her  pitiless  and  untiring  hatred  of  Israel, 
a  hatred  that  was  nursed  by  day  and  nour- 
ished by  night;  Ammon,  because  of  their  un- 
speakable barbarity  to  women  in  a  war  whose 
only  justification  was  the  extension  of  terri- 
tory; Moab,  because  of  the  insolence  with 
which  she  desecrated  the  holy  places  of  the 
land  and  insulted  the  pieties  universally  cher- 
ished toward  the  dead.  The  world  around 
Israel  was  a  hard  and  cruel  world  that  tram- 
pled remorselessly  upon  the  fundamental  sanc- 
tities of  life  and  liberty,  and  to  a  man  of  the 
spirit  of  Amos  it  seemed  only  right  that  they 
in  turn  should  be  trampled  under  the  iron 
heel  of  the  Assyrian  horde. 

The  Case  of  Israel 

Up  to  that  point  the  nation  listened  with 
delight  to  their  prophet.  The  doom  of  the 
other  nations  satisfied  their  complacent  and 
vindictive  spirits.  Let  it  fall;  they  deserved 
it ;  it  could  not  come  too  soon.  The  day !  The 
day!  Would  that  it  were  here!  they  would 
welcome  it.     These  decadent  and  barlbarous 


96  WORLD  POWER 

nations  must  go  down!  The  day!  The  day! 
But  swift  as  lightning  Amos  turns  upon  them. 
They  too  shall  be  caught  in  the  storm.  They 
thought  themselves  guiltless  but  they  were  not. 
They  boasted  of  their  pedigree  as  the  chosen 
people  of  God.  They  gloried  in  a  sort  of  Di- 
vine right  that  sheltered  them.  They  regarded 
themselves  as  the  called  of  God  and  therefore 
exempt  from  His  wrath.  Their  land  was  pros- 
perous and  they  took  their  prosperity  as  a  sign 
of  the  Divine  favor.  But  their  life  was  reek- 
ing with  sin.  They  had  trampled  upon  the 
poor;  they  had  laid  heavy  burdens  of  taxa- 
tion on  the  people;  they  had  turned  the  sanc- 
tuaries into  places  of  lust  and  merchandise; 
they  had  poisoned  justice  at  the  fountains  of 
the  nation;  they  had  developed  a  class  of  the 
rich  and  powerful  that  ruled  the  nation  with 
an  iron  hand.  For  all  this  the  day  of  reckon- 
ing would  come.  It  would  be  a  day  of  destiny. 
It  would  be  the  awful  havoc  of  war.  He 
warns  them  that   (5:3) 

"The  city  that  marched  forth  a  thousand 
Shall  come  back  with  a  hundred, 
And  the  city  that  marched  forth  a  hundred 
Shall  come  back  with  but  ten." 


THE  DAY!    THE  DAY!  97 

It  would  be  a  day  of  terror  and  desperation. 
It  would  be  as  if  a  man  fled  from  a  lion  and 
lo!  a  bear  met  him,  or  escaping  from  the  lion 
and  the  bear  he  is  met  by  a  serpent  that  bites. 
O  Israel,  you  have  hailed  the  day  of  doom  for 
others,  but  it  will  prove  to  be  the  day  of  doom 
for  you!  O  Israel,  you  have  boasted  the  day 
of  defeat  for  others,  but  it  will  be  the  day  of 
defeat  for  you !  The  day!  The  day !  you  say. 
"Woe  unto  you  that  desire  the  day  of  the 
Lord ;  to  what  end  is  it  for  you  ?  the  day  of  the 
Lord  is  darkness  and  not  light." 

The  Case  of  Germany 

No  one  can  miss  the  very  striking  parallel 
between  these  words  and  that  thing  that  has 
been  cherished  for  twenty-five  years  at  the 
heart  of  a  great  and  powerful  people  to-day. 
It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  for  these  many 
years  in  the  officers'  mess  in  the  army  and  navy 
of  Germany  there  has  been  drunk  a  toast  to 
"The  Day!  The  Day!"— the  day  when  the 
dogs  of  war  would  be  slipped  in  Europe,  the 
day  when  the  doom  would  fall  on  all  Ger- 
many's rivals,  and  on  some  occasions  at  least 
the  hope  was  emphasized  by  smashing   the 


98  WORLD  POWER 

glasses  from  which  the  toast  was  drunk,  as 
symbolic  of  the  blow  by  which  they  would 
smash  Britain  when  "the  day"  would  come. 
Their  prosperity  they  took  as  a  sign  of  the 
Divine  favor;  their  pedigree  and  culture  as  a 
sign  of  the  Divine  sanction.  To  prepare  for 
"the  day"  they  trampled  on  the  poor;  they 
•laid  heavy  burdens  of  taxation  on  the  people; 
they  developed  a  class  of  the  rich  and  power- 
ful that  ruled  the  nation  with  an  iron  hand; 
they  poisoned  the  fountain  springs  of  justice; 
they  fanned  the  popular  mind  into  a  flame  of 
war;  they  impregnated  the  soil  of  their  na- 
tional life  with  the  seeds  of  hatred,  suspicion, 
and  strife.  Boasting  and  toasting  for  the 
day,  lying  and  spying  for  the  day,  dreaming 
and  scheming  for  the  day,  sowing  and  grow- 
ing for  the  day,  wronging  and  longing  for 
the  day — ^until  the  conscience  of  the  world  pro- 
tested in  the  name  of  God,  and  rose  up  to 
say,  "You  have  hailed  the  day  of  doom  for 
others,  it  will  be  the  day  of  doom  for  you. 
You  have  hastened  the  day  of  blood  for  others, 
it  will  be  the  day  of  blood  for  you.  You  have 
boasted  the  day  of  defeat  for  others,  it  will 
be  the  day  of  defeat  for  you.    'The  Day !  The 


THE  DAY!    THE  DAY!  99 

Day'  you  say.  Let  it  come.  It  cannot  come 
too  soon,  would  that  it  were  here.  'Ah,  woe 
unto  you  that  desire  the  day  of  the  Lord;  to 
what  end  is  it  for  you?  the  day  of  the  Lord 
is  darkness  and  not  light.'  " 

The  Spiritual  Teaching 

And  now  from  these  two  events  so  far  apart 
in  point  of  time,  so  close  together  in  charac- 
ter, there  emerge  a  few  great  truths  we  do  well 
to  heed  to-day : 

1.  The  Inexorable  Working  of  the  Moral 
Law. — And  first  of  all  we  are  impressed  with 
the  inexorableness  and  certainty  of  the  work- 
ing of  the  moral  law.  Over  against  the  sin  is 
"the  day."  There  is  the  inevitable  day  of  the 
Lord,  the  day  of  reckoning.  Israel  imagined 
that  she  might  escape  the  doom  that  would  fall 
on  others  though  she  shared  their  sin.  But 
there  was  not  and  is  not  any  escape.  There  is 
nothing  surer  than  that.  In  the  moral  world 
the  laws  never  fail.  As  Plato  says,  the  sin  and 
its  effects  are  "rivetted  together."  Certain 
effects  follow  certain  causes;  certain  fruits 
will  come  from  certain  roots.     It  cannot  be 


100  WORLD  POWER 

otherwise.  "Men  do  not  gather  grapes  from 
thorns  nor  figs  from  thistles."  "Be  not  de- 
ceived, God  is  not  mocked,  for  whatsoever  a 
man  soweth  that  shall  he  also  reap."  That  is 
a  truth  that  is  not  only  written  in  the  Bible 
but  written  indelibly  on  the  conscience  of  man. 
We  have  put  it  into  our  proverbs.  "Our  sins," 
we  say,  "come  home  to  roost,"  and  in  that  we 
are  not  mistaken.  "The  mills  of  the  gods  grind 
slowly,  but  they  grind  exceeding  small,"  and 
in  that  we  are  not  mistaken.  Said  an  oppressed 
woman  to  Richelieu,  "God  does  not  always 
pay  at  the  end  of  the  week  but  He  pays."  Ah, 
there  it  is!  He  pays!  He  pays!  In  the  old 
Greek  mythology  this  sure  retribution  was  rep- 
resented and  worshipped  as  a  goddess.  Her 
name  was  Nemesis — whence  my  subject,  "The 
Nemesis  of  Justice."  And  she  is  always  rep- 
resented with  a  measuring  rod  to  indicate  that 
justice  will  measure  the  exact  reward;  she  is 
represented  with  sword  and  scourge  to  indi- 
cate that  justice  will  administer  the  punishment 
that  is  due ;  she  is  represented  with  wings,  driv- 
ing in  a  chariot  drawn  by  swift  griffins,  to  indi- 
cate the  swiftness  with  which  justice  will  fol- 
low on  all  the  wrongdoing  of  men. 


THE  DAY!    THE  DAY  I        101 

Ah,  when  will  we  learn  this  great  truth  that 
there  can  never  be  any  harmless  infraction  of 
the  moral  law?  The  nation  that  breaks  it  shall 
suffer;  so  also  the  man.  No  lapse  of  time  can 
ever  cheat  that  unforgetting  nemesis  of  jus- 
tice. No  stretch  of  space  can  divide  you  from 
the  long  arm  of  that  moral  law.  As  Carlyle 
says:  "It  would  seem  that  the  unjust  thing 
has  no  friend  in  Heaven,  and  a  majority 
against  it  on  Earth;  nay  that  it  at  bottom  has 
all  men  for  its  enemies ;  that  it  may  take  shelter 
in  this  fallacy  and  then  in  that,  but  will  be 
hunted  from  fallacy  to  fallacy  till  it  find  no 
fallacy  to  shelter  in  any  more  but  must  march 
and  go  elsewhither; — that,  in  a  word,  it  ought 
to  prepare  incessantly  for  decent  departure, 
before  indecent  departure,  ignominious  drum- 
ming out,  nay  savage  smiting  out  and  burning 
out,  overtake  it!" 

Remembering  that,  we  will  cease  to  wonder 
that  this  war  is  upon  the  nations.  It  is  the 
natural  harvest  of  a  seed  that  has  been  assidu- 
ously sown.  It  is  the  inevitable  fruitage  of 
the  German  philosophy  and  some  of  the  Ger- 
man theology,  the  German  ambition  and  the 
German  hate.     How  could  it  be  otherwise? 


102  WORLD  POWER 

They  that  sow  the  wind  must  reap  the  whirl- 
wind. For  my  own  part,  when  I  think  of  the 
seed  that  has  been  sown,  the  spirit  that  has  been 
cherished,  the  teaching  that  has  been  rife 
among"  the  nations,  and  Germany  in  particular, 
it  would  have  seemed  a  breakdown  in  the  whole 
moral  order  of  God's  economy  if  the  harvest 
had  not  come  in  just  the  way  it  has. 

2.  The  Surprises  of  Judgment — Note  again 
the  great  surprise  that  often  accompanies  the 
outworking  of  the  moral  law.  "The  day  of  the 
Lord  is  darkness  and  not  light."  Woe  unto 
you  who  call  for  the  day!  It  will  not  be  the 
kind  of  day  you  think  it  will  be.  Instead  of 
light,  darkness ;  instead  of  hope,  despair ;  in- 
stead of  victory,  defeat.  For  twenty-five  years 
Germany  has  called  for  "the  day" — thinking 
of  it  only  as  a  day  of  power,  of  victory,  of 
easy  triumph,  and  the  humiliation  of  every  foe. 
I  would  not  be  foolish  enough  .to  offer  any 
opinion  on  the  status  of  the  fighting  thus  far, 
but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  already  "the  day"  has 
not  proved  to  be  all  that  Germany  anticipated. 
And  this  is  not  the  place  nor  the  hour,  nor  is  it 
ever  the  place  or  the  hour,  to  say  one  boastful 


THE  DAY  I    THE  DAY!        103 

word,  but  if  this  great  struggle  ends  as  we 
hope  it  shall,  as  we  believe  it  ought  if  there  be 
a  God  in  Heaven,  if  it  ends  in  the  only  way  in 
which  the  civilized  world  can  afford  to  have  it 
end,  then  "the  day"  will  prove  to  be  a  great 
surprise  to  the  proud  ambitions  of  the  German 
power. 

"But  after  the  Day  there's  a  price  to  pay 
For  the  sleepers  under  the  sod. 
And  He  whom  you  mocked  for  many  a  day- 
Listen  and  hear  what  He  has  to  say: 
'Vengeance  is  Mine,  I  will  repay,' 
What  can  you  say  to  God?" 

But  it  is  not  upon  the  conscience  of  Ger- 
many that  I  can  hope  to  write  that  word.  A 
nearer  duty  lies  at  hand — to  write  that  word 
on  your  conscience  now.  We  have  a  kind  of 
easy  way  of  thinking  of  sin,  confusing  it  with 
good,  supposing  we  could  sow  the  seed  of  sin 
and  from  our  sowing  reap  the  harvest  of  righ- 
teousness. My  friends,  that  harvest  will  sur- 
prise us.  You  remember  the  guilty  king  in 
"Hamlet,"  guilty  of  the  murder  of  his  brother, 
praying  to  Heaven  and  trying  to  assure  him- 
self that  all  may  yet  be  well : 


104  WORLD  POWER 

"What  if  this  cursed  hand 
Were  thicker  than  itself  with  brother's  blood — 
Is  there  not  rain  enough  in  the  sweet  Heavens 
To  wash  it  white  as  snow?" 

And  yet  he  knows  there  is  no  prayer  that  he 
can  offer  Hkely  to  be  heard  in  those  "sweet 
heavens"  since 

"I  am  still  possessed 
Of  those  effects  for  which  I  did  the  murder: 
My  crown,  mine  own  ambition,  and  my  queen." 

And  then  with  an  insight  into  the  laws  of  God 
Hke  the  deep  vision  of  a  saint,  the  conscience- 
stricken  king  is  made  to  say : 

"In  the  corrupted  currents  of  this  world. 
Offence's  gilded  hand  may  shove  by  justice; 

but  'tis  not  so  above; 

There  is  no  shuffling — there  the  action  lies 
In  his  true  nature,  and  we  ourselves  compelled. 
Even  to  the  teeth  and  forehead  of  our  faults, 
To  give  in  evidence." 

But  why  should  I  seek  an  illustration  of  this 
when  our  Lord  Himself  pulled  aside  the  veil 
of  the  future  and  glimpsed  for  us  the  surprise 
that  shall  fall  upon  men  in  that  great  day. 
"Lord,  when  saw  we  thee  an  hungered,  or 
athirst,  or  a  stranger,  or  naked,  or  sick,  or  in 


THE  DAY!    THE  DAY!        105 

prison,  and  did  not  minister  unto  thee?  Then 
shall  He  answer  them,  saying.  Verily  I  say 
unto  you,  inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  not  to  one  of 
the  least  of  these,  ye  did  it  not  to  me."  For 
these  men  the  day  of  the  Lord  will  be  darkness 
and  not  light. 

This  is  the  truth  we  must  fearlessly  face  in 
our  own  hearts.  There  are  some  who  in  their 
thought  of  "that  day"  think  of  it  only  as  a 
day  of  light.  Are  you  quite  sure  it  will  prove 
to  be  so,  and  is  your  confidence  well  founded? 
It  is  an  easy  matter  to  get  ourselves  into  the 
habit  of  thinking  that  death  can  only  bring  us 
good.  We  convince  ourselves  that  somehow 
we  shall  "muddle  safely  through."  We  talk 
of  death  as  a  rest,  a  sleep  that  we  shall  wel- 
come. We  say  that  "in  the  grave  we  end  the 
heartache  and  the  thousand  natural  shocks  that 
flesh  is  heir  to."  We  speak  as  though  the  tide 
that  bears  us  on  must  inevitably  bear  us  into 
bliss.  We  say  "to  die  is  gain,"  forgetting  that 
the  man  who  said  that  was  able  first  to  say,  "to 
me  to  live  is  Christ."  It  is  the  old  philosophy 
of  the  self-satisfied — the  philosophy  of  the 
Rubaiyat,  "God's  a  good  fellow  and  'twill  all 
be  well."    But  life  and  destiny  do  not  rest  on 


106  WORLD  POWER 

such  a  foundation  as  that.  Let  us  examine  the 
ground  of  our  confidence,  if  confidence  we 
have.  Let  us  forget,  for  the  moment,  Ger- 
many and  her  "day"  and  think  of  our  "day," 
near  or  distant,  who  can  tell?  Let  us  see  that 
no  dark  surprise  awaits  us  in  that  day.  And 
the  "day  of  darkness"  it  will  surely  be  unless 
we  come  to  it  in  Christ,  yielded  to  Him,  for- 
given through  Him,  cleansed  by  His  blood,  and 
adopted  into  His  family  of  grace.  Without 
Him  to  plead  om*  cause  we  shall  be  poor  indeed, 
and  that  day  will  not  be  a  glad  looking-for- 
ward-to  of  glory  but  a  "fearful  looking-for- 
ward-to  of  judgment  and  fiery  indignation" — 
a  day  of  darkness  and  not  light. 

3.  The  Necessity  of  Atonement — There  is 
something  in  this  great  retribution  falling 
upon  sin  that  helps  us  to  see  the  necessity  of 
that  Atonement  which  Christ  made  upon  the 
cross.  We  find  it  difficult  at  times  to  see  the 
need  of  it,  and  why  "it  pleased  the  Lord  to 
bruise  Him,"  and  how  "he  was  wounded  for 
our  transgressions  and  bruised  for  our  iniqui- 
ties." But  if  history  has  made  one  thing 
plainer  than  another  it  is  this — that  sin  must 
be  punished.    It  is  a  part  of  the  great  order  of 


THE  DAY!    THE  DAY!        107 

a  moral  world.  It  is  a  necessity  to  which  God 
Himself  is  subject.  To  deal  with  sin  in  any 
other  way  than  this  would  be  a  violation  of 
the  order  He  Himself  established  and  a  con- 
tradiction of  His  own  nature.  Well  do  we 
know  that  we  had  laid  up  for  ourselves  a  "day 
of  darkness"  in  our  sin.  Well  do  we  know 
that  if  that  sin  was  atoned  for  some  one  must 
step  into  the  darkness ;  well  do  we  know  that  it 
was  not  we  who  did  that.  It  was  Christ  who 
took  our  place.  That  is  the  meaning  of  Cal- 
vary. It  is  the  day  of  the  world's  darkness 
borne  by  One  in  whom  the  darkness  spent  it- 
self. The  blow  fell  on  Him ;  the  j  udgment  was 
visited  on  Him;  the  sword  went  through  His 
heart.  He  was  made  sin  for  us,  though  He 
knew  no  sin.  We  know  not  (and  thank  God 
need  never  know)  how  deep  was  that  darkness, 
only  we  know  that  to  Him  the  Father's  face 
was  obscured.  In  the  desolation  of  that  hour 
He  cried,  "My  God,  My  God,  why  hast  thou 
forsaken  me?"  My  friend.  He  entered  that 
darkness  that  you  might  enter  into  light.  He 
bowed  His  head  beneath  that  shame  that  you 
might  lift  your  head  in  glory.    He  bore  the 


108  WORLD  POWER 

burden  of  that  Cross  that  you  might  wear  the 
splendour  of  that  crown. 

With  this  majestic  promise  then  I  close — 
majestic  in  its  possibilities  of  salvation.  Are 
you  thinking  of  "the  day!  the  day!"  with  some 
deep  foreboding  in  your  heart  that  all  may  not 
be  well?  What  if  it  were  possible  to  put  the 
day  of  darkness  forever  behind  you!  What  if 
you  were  able  to  turn  your  face  upon  the  shad- 
ow of  your  sin  and  turn  your  face  to  light  that 
is  undimmed.  And  this  can  you  do.  Listen! 
"He  that  heareth  my  word  and  believeth  on 
Him  that  sent  me  hath  everlasting  life  and  shall 
not  come  unto  judgment,  but  is  passed  from 
death  into  life."  "There  is  therefore  now  no 
condemnation — no  judgment — to  them  that 
are  in  Christ  Jesus."  Even  here  and  now 
where  you  sit  you  may  see  the  passing  of  "the 
day"  if  you  will  but  open  your  heart  to  Him. 
In  a  very  few  minutes  this  congregation  will 
be  scattered  far  and  wide.  Would  that  I 
might  cease  speaking  to  the  congregation  and 
take  hold  of  the  hand  of  some  man,  glad  to  es- 
cape from  the  condemnation  of  sin.  Hast  thou 
seen  the  vision  of  righteousness?  Hast  thou 
heard  the  music  from  the  upper  reaches  of  life? 


THE  DAY!     THE  DAY!        109 

Hast  thou  longed  for  a  sense  of  peace  and  the 
assurance  that  you  were  right  with  God?  Come 
and  you  may  have  what  your  heart  longs  for. 
He  will  pardon;  He  will  break  the  tyrant's 
power;  He  will  dissipate  the  darkness  and  in 
the  radiance  of  His  love  you  need  have  no  fear 
of  the  night  for  in  Him  the  day  of  darkness  is 
past  and  the  true  light  shineth  in  the  soul. 


VI 

A  SCRAP  OF  PAPER:  THE 
MORALITY  OF  NATIONS 


VI 

A  SCRAP  OF  PAPER:  THE 
MORALITY  OF  NATIONS 

Text: — "Shall  he  break  the  covenant  and  be  deliv- 
ered? .  .  As  I  live,  surely  mine  oath  that  he  hath 
despised  and  my  covenant  that  he  hath  broken,  even  it 
•will  I  recompense  upon  his  own  head." — Ezekiel  17:  15, 
19. 

It  is  a  very  common  saying  that  "history  re- 
peats itself"  and  even  a  casual  glance  at  the 
past  centuries  will  show  you  how  the  wheel  re- 
volves and  the  experiences  of  the  nations  are 
reproduced  again  and  again.  Striking  indeed 
was  the  parallel  we  noted  last  Sunday  evening 
between  the  case  of  Israel  that  called  for  "The 
Day!  The  Day!"  little  dreaming  that  "The  day 
of  the  Lord  would  be  darkness  and  not  light," 
and  the  case  of  Germany  twenty-seven  centu- 
ries later  that  toasted  "The  Day!  The  Day!" 
little  thinking  that  it  may  prove  for  her  the  day 
not  of  "world  power"  but  "doTMifall."  Hardly 
less  striking  is  the  parallel  we  find  in  our  text 

113 


114  WORLD  POWER 

to-night.  As  far  back  as  six  hundred  years  be- 
fore Christ  here  was  a  nation  that  looked  upon 
her  treaties  as  "a  scrap  of  paper,"  and,  regard- 
less of  honor,  violated  her  pledged  and  plighted 
word.  There  is  no  need  that  I  should  review 
this  long  story  of  Judah's  perfidy.  Suffice  it 
to  say  that  Zedekiah  and  his  counsellors  had 
bound  themselves  as  the  representatives  of  the 
kingdom  to  "serve  the  King  of  Babjdon."  The 
honor  of  the  nation  was  pledged  to  that.  Under 
a  solemn  compact  they  had  agreed  also  to  en- 
ter into  no  alliance  with  Egypt  against  Baby- 
lon. But  in  a  secret  and  treacherous  hour  Ju- 
dah  tore  her  treaty  to  shreds.  For  the  sake  of 
a  military  advantage  that  might  be  gained  she 
sent  her  ambassadors  to  Egypt  to  secure  the 
support  of  the  infantry  and  cavalry  of  Pha- 
raoh. Her  pledge  to  Babylon  was  nothing,  her 
honor  nothing,  her  promise  nothing.  But  it 
proved  to  be  a  gross  miscalculation.  Egypt 
was  not  able  to  furnish  the  expected  help. 
"Neither  shall  Pharaoh  with  his  mighty  army 
and  great  company  make  for  him  in  the  war  by 
casting  up  mounds,  and  building  forts,  to  cut 
off  many  persons"  (17:  17).  The  treacherous 
hopes  of  Judah  fell  to  the  ground.    And  then 


A  SCRAP  OF  PAPER  115 

the  prophet  Ezekiel  pointed  out  that  for  all  this 
treachery  and  for  the  violation  of  her  honor 
there  are  two  results  that  will  surely  come. 
The  first  is  that  the  violation  of  their  word  to 
men  will  be  regarded  by  Jehovah  as  the  viola- 
tion of  their  word  to  Him  and  consequently 
His  vengeance  will  visit  them.  The  second  re- 
sult is  that  on  the  ground  where  they  violated 
their  honor,  on  that  very  ground  would  they 
be  humbled  before  the  eyes  of  men.  "As  I 
live,  saith  the  Lord  God,  surely  in  the  place 
where  the  king  dwelleth  that  made  him  king, 
whose  oath  he  despised,  and  whose  covenant 
he  brake,  even  with  him  in  the  midst  of  Baby- 
lon he  shall  die"  (17:16). 

The  Modern  Perfidy 

Leave  behind  you  now  the  twenty-five  cen- 
turies that  lie  between  and  you  can  read  again 
the  same  story  in  the  history  of  the  German 
Empire  to-day.  In  company  with  the  other 
great  nations  of  Europe,  Germany  put  her 
signature  to  a  solemn  compact  that  guaranteed 
the  neutrality  of  Belgium  for  all  the  future. 
That  pledge  goes  back  as  far  as  1839.    From 


116  WORLD  POWER 

time  to  time  throughout  the  past  century  it  was 
confirmed.  Germany's  honor  was  behind  it; 
behind  it  also  her  pledged  word.  Prince  Bis- 
marck recognized  the  binding  character  of  that 
treaty  in  1870  and  in  the  Franco-Prussian  war 
the  neutrality  of  Belgium  was  observed.  But 
for  the  sake  of  a  supposed  military  advantage 
in  the  present  crisis  Germany  tore  her  treaty 
to  shreds.  It  was  only  "a  scrap  of  paper."  To 
strike  a  swift  blow  at  France  it  was  necessary 
to  pass  over  Belgian  soil.  In  the  presence  of 
that  selfish  purpose  all  her  honor  was  thrown 
to  the  winds.  In  the  words  of  the  German 
Chancellor,  "Necessity  knows  no  law."  Right 
or  wrong  "he  must  hack  his  way  through." 
With  a  calm  defiance  of  all  decency  and  honor, 
he  says,  "This  is  an  infraction  of  international 
law.  We  are  compelled  to  over-rule  the  legiti- 
mate protests  of  the  Luxemburg  and  Belgian 
governments.  We  shall  repair  the  wrong  when 
our  military  aims  have  been  achieved."  Mili- 
tary aims  then  annul  treaties;  military  neces- 
sity knows  no  law;  the  slaughter  of  thousands 
of  innocent  and  peaceable  citizens  and  the  de- 
struction of  medieval  monuments  constitute  a 
wrong  that  is  to  be  repaired,  as  if  that  kind  of 


A  SCRAP  OF  PAPER  lir 

thing  can  ever  be  atoned  for  by  any  nation  un- 
der the  sun.  I  need  hardly  remind  j^ou  how  the 
parallel  holds  again.  That  act  on  the  part  of 
Germany  was  a  gross  miscalculation.  By  that 
act  she  enlisted  against  her  the  moral  sentiment 
of  the  whole  civilized  world.  By  that  act  she 
received  a  check  at  the  hands  of  the  brave  Bel- 
gian army  before  Liege  that  forbade  her  swift 
blow  at  France  and  threw  the  whole  plan  of 
her  campaign  out  of  joint.  In  the  saloon  of 
the  "Royal  Edward"  on  my  return  from  Eng- 
land this  summer  I  listened  with  profound  in- 
terest to  a  group  of  ten  or  twelve  Americans 
as  they  reviewed  the  miscalculations  of  Ger- 
many in  a  stroke  to  which  she  attached  so  much. 
She  had  miscalculated  on  Sweden,  which  she 
hoped  would  furnish  a  quarter  of  a  million  of 
men  to  strike  Russia  on  the  north;  miscalcu- 
lated on  the  spirit  and  strength  of  France; 
miscalculated  on  the  courage  of  Belgium; 
miscalculated  on  the  rapidity  of  Russian  mobi- 
lization; miscalculated  on  the  spirit  of  In- 
dia and  Ireland;  miscalculated  above  all 
on  the  moral  sense  of  the  British  people. 
In  a   somewhat  surprised   and  complaining 


118  WORLD  POWER 

way  the  German  Chancellor  declared,  "Just 
for  a  word — neutrality — a  word  which  in 
war-time  had  so  often  been  disregarded — 
just  for  a  scrap  of  paper  Britain  was  go- 
ing* to  make  war."  Ah!  that  was  the  greatest 
miscalculation  of  all.  And  somehow  we  can- 
not but  think  that  the  two  dark  results  that 
fell  upon  Judah  will  fall  upon  Germany,  viz. : 
that  the  violation  of  her  pledged  word  to  Bel- 
gium will  be  regarded  by  the  Eternal  Jehovah 
as  a  violation  of  her  pledged  word  to  Him 
as  a  Christian  nation  and,  again,  that  on  that 
very  ground  of  Belgium  where  she  violated  her 
honor — on  that  very  ground  shall  she  be  hum- 
bled before  the  eyes  of  the  whole  world. 

Here  then  is  raised  for  us  the  supreme  ques- 
tion of  truth  and  honor  in  our  relation  to  men 
and  our  relation  to  God.  It  is  along  these  two 
lines  I  can  best  crystallize  my  message  to- 
night: first,  our  pledged  word  in  relation  to 
men;  second,  our  pledged  word  in  relation  to 
God.  Upon  our  observance  of  the  first  rests 
the  whole  structure  of  society;  upon  our  ob- 
servance of  the  second  depends  the  pure  es- 
sence of  all  religion. 


A  SCRAP  OF  PAPER  119 

Our  Pledged  Word  m  Relation  to  Men 

First  of  all,  then  we  observe  that  the  great 
law  of  honor  holds  in  the  individual  Hfe between 
man  and  man.    It  is  no  light  thing  for  a  man 
to  give  his  word  in  solemn  promise  to  another. 
His  word  is  the  expression  of  his  personality. 
It  is  not  something  that  is  separated  from 
himself.    When  a  man  gives  his  word  he  gives 
himself;  when  he  breaks  his  word  he  breaks 
himself.     Likewise  his  name  represents  him- 
self.   In  the  olden  days  a  man's  name  was  the 
expression  of  his  character.    The  name  Jacob 
means  "a  trickster"  and  so  Jacob  proved  to  be. 
Abraham  was  called  Abraham  because  Abra- 
ham means  "the  father  of  a  multitude"  and 
so   Abraham   was   in  the   purposes   of   God. 
Jesus   was    called   Jesus   because   that   name 
means  Saviour  and  it  was  written  of  Him, 
"Thou  shalt  call  His  name  Jesus  for  He  shall 
save    His    people    from    their    sins."      And 
though  we  do  not  follow  the  custom  now,  a 
man's  name  is  the  expression  of  himself.    It  is 
no  light  thing,  therefore,  to  put  your  name  to 
a  bond,  and  unless  a  man  is  released  honorably 
and  willingly  from  it  he  must  endeavor  so  far 


120  WOKLD  POWER 

as  in  him  lies  to  redeem  the  honor  of  his  name. 
And,  thank  God,  this  country  is  not  without 
some  shining  examples  of  men  who  were  legal- 
ly discharged  from  some  obligation  they  con- 
tracted for  the  sake  of  another,  yet  felt 
themselves  morally  bound  to  discharge  it,  and 
discharge  it  they  did  because  their  honor  was 
involved  and  because  they  scorned  to  pass  on 
to  their  children  and  their  children's  children  a 
name  that  bore  a  stain. 

So  also  does  the  same  law  of  honor  hold  in 
the  corporate  dealings  of  men.  In  the  case  of 
the  employer  and  employee  there  are  obliga- 
tions implied  in  their  contract  with  one  another 
as  sacred  as  the  vows  one  makes  to  God.  The 
moral  import  is  sacred  though  the  written  seal 
is  not  put  upon  it.  It  is  because  this  has  been 
disregarded  on  both  sides  at  times  that  the 
troubles  rise  in  the  labor  world.  When  a 
workman  contracts  as  he  does  to  give  his  time 
and  effort  and  skill  to  his  employer  for  a  cer- 
tain period  of  each  day  and  squanders  his  time, 
or  withholds  that  effort,  or  skimps  his  work,  or 
puts  less  than  his  best  skill  into  it,  he  has  torn 
up  the  solemn  compact  to  which  his  honor  is 
attached  and  counts  it  no  more  than  "a  scrap 


A  SCRAP  OF  PAPER  121 

of  paper."  And  when  an  employer  contracts 
as  he  does  to  protect  his  workman  from  dan- 
ger, to  advance  his  interests,  to  justly  recom- 
pense his  labors,  to  stand  by  him  in  the  time  of 
stress,  and  fails  to  do  these  things,  he  too  has 
torn  up  his  solemn  compact  to  which  his  honor 
is  attached  and  counts  it  no  more  than  "a  scrap 
of  paper."  It  will  not  be  until  we  have  recog- 
nized this  fact  that  we  shall  see  an  end  of  some 
of  those  gigantic  conflicts  that  shake  the  labor 
world  from  end  to  end. 

What  holds  for  the  individual  and  the  com- 
munity binds  itself  also  upon  the  nation.  In 
deed  if  not  in  word  we  have  tried  to  demon- 
strate that  the  nation  has  no  soul.  It  is  a 
common  enough  saying  that  "corporations 
have  no  souls"  and  we  have  set  about  to  prove 
it.  We  treat  them  at  times  as  if  they  were 
beyond  the  pale  of  morals.  Many  a  man  who 
would  scorn  to  cheat  another  will  not  hesitate 
to  cheat  a  railway  of  his  fare.  Many  a  man 
who  would  blush  to  rob  a  merchant  will  with 
an  easy  conscience  rob  the  government  at  the 
customs  house.  But  the  code  of  morals  that 
Jesus  shaped  for  individual  honor  is  binding 
on  national  honor  too.    There  is  such  a  thing 


122  WORLD  POWER 

as  the  breakdown  of  national  morality.  There 
are  some  nations  that  come  to  be  trusted  and 
some  are  regarded  with  suspicion  and  fear. 
Take  the  case  of  Germany.  There  has  been  a 
widespread  mistrust  of  German  diplomacy. 
The  world  has  not  forgotten  how  Bismarck 
edited  the  famous  Ems  telegram  in  1870 — 
changing  it  in  two  words  so  that  it  was  de- 
signed to  injure  the  pride  of  the  French  people 
and  inflame  the  French  spirit  till  it  kindled 
into  war.  That  seed  is  flourishing  to-day,  in 
the  breaking  of  treaties,  in  the  rending  of  cove- 
nants, in  the  utter  disregard  of  all  the  accepted 
rules  of  warfare,  and  it  may  be  traced  back 
to  the  Bismarckian  standards  that  stamped 
themselves  upon  the  nation's  life.  In  the  pres- 
ent instance,  German  perfidy  is  all  the  more 
glaring  and  dastardly  because  it  is  so  selfish 
and  because  it  was  directed  against  a  small  and 
defenceless  people.  I  need  not  remind  you 
that  if  such  standards  obtain  civilization  will 
be  at  an  end.  It  is  a  Satanic  sneer  hurled  with 
fell  purpose  into  the  midst  of  human  life.  So- 
ciety under  such  a  code  would  be  swiftly  re- 
duced to  ruins.  Rather  than  live  under  such  a 
code  let  us  perish.    And  there  is  something  to 


A  SCRAP  OF  PAPER  123 

me  superbly  grand  in  the  figure  of  Britain's 
great  Prime  Minister  standing  in  the  Guild- 
hall in  London,  as  with  tense,  white  face  he 
declared  that  he  would  rather  see  England 
blotted  out  from  the  pages  of  history  than  to 
see  her  remain  as  "a  silent  witness  to  the  tragic 
triumph  of  force  over  law  and  freedom." 

Our  Pledged  Word  in  Relation  to  God 

Binding  as  our  covenants  are  which  are 
made  with  men  they  are  not  more  so  than  the 
covenants  that  we  make  with  God.  He  is 
pleased  indeed  to  regard  our  sacred  cove- 
nants with  one  another  as  in  some  sense  made 
with  Himself.  He  is  the  fountain  of  all  truth 
and  honor  and  any  violation  of  truth  in  the 
whole  wide  universe  is  a  blow  aimed  at  the 
sanctity  of  the  Eternal  government  among 
men.  There  are  many  ways  in  which  as  a  na- 
tion we  have  made  our  covenant  with  God. 
We  repeatedly  call  ourselves  a  Christian  peo- 
ple, which  implies  at  least  that  we  have  accept- 
ed the  moral  standards  and  spiritual  teachings 
of  Christ.  Think  for  a  moment  of  the  tacit 
covenants  into  which  we  have  entered  in  the 


124  WORLD  POWER 

phrases  and  mottoes  in  which  we  crystallize  the 
sentiment  of  the  nation.  Never  before  per- 
haps in  the  life  time  of  any  one  here  have  we 
sung  so  often  and  so  fervently  our  national 
anthem : 

God  save  our  gracious  King, 
Long  live  our  noble  King, 

God  save  the  King! 
Send  him  victorious, 
Happy  and  glorious. 
Long  to  reign  over  us: 

God  save  the  King! 

Do  we  stop  to  realize  what  is  implied  in 
that?  It  is  our  covenant  which  as  a  nation  we 
have  made  with  High  Heaven  on  behalf  of 
OLU'  King.  In  that  we  confess  that  the  Royal 
throne  stands  or  falls  by  the  will  of  God;  that 
victory  or  defeat  turns  upon  His  word;  that 
the  very  life  of  our  sovereign  is  in  His  hands. 
Yet  there  are  times  when  in  the  swagger  of 
our  power  we  leave  God  out  of  our  reckoning 
and  in  that  hour  we  have  torn  our  covenant  to 
shreds  and  counted  it  as  "a  scrap  of  paper." 
Again !  I  hold  in  my  hand  a  coin  of  the  realm, 
a  bit  of  silver  that  passes  as  currency,  a  pledge 
of  good  faith  between  man  and  man.  And 
upon  it  I  find  this  inscription:  Georgius  V, 


A  SCRAP  OF  PAPER  125 

Dei  Gratia  Rex  et  Ind.  Imp.:  George  V,  by 
the  grace  of  God,  King,  and  Emperor  of  In- 
dia. Note  the  phrase  "  by  the  grace  of  God." 
It  implies  that  by  the  gracious  consent  and 
anointing  power  of  God  our  sovereign  holds 
his  place  as  King  of  Great  Britain  and  Em- 
peror of  India.  From  the  Royal  mint  with  the 
full  authority  of  the  nation  we  have  stamped 
that  conviction  upon  every  coin,  gold,  silver, 
copper,  that  passes  into  the  circulation  of  our 
business  life.  And  yet  there  are  times  when 
in  the  greedy  grasping  after  that  coin  and  all 
it  represents,  in  our  surrender  to  the  material- 
ism for  which  it  often  stands,  we  belie  the  pro- 
fession we  have  made,  we  have  torn  our  cove- 
nant to  shreds  and  tossed  it  as  "a  scrap  of 
paper"  to  the  winds.  Within  the  memory  of 
all  who  are  here  except  the  youngest  will  come 
the  recollection  of  that  day  in  1897  when 
Queen  Victoria  celebrated  her  jubilee,  gather- 
ing her  children  from  a  hundred  colonies 
around  her  knees.  In  that  elevated  moment 
the  true  imperial  sentiment  found  its  utterance 
in  the  Recessional  of  Kipling — Kipling  who 
unfortunately  has  not  always  consecrated  his 
genius  to  such  high  ends.    But  in  that  greatest 


126  WORLD  POWER 

product  of  his  literary  and  spiritual  genius  he 
voiced  the  soul  of  the  nation : 

"God  of  our  fathers,  known  of  old; 

Lord  of  our  far  flung  battle  line, 
Beneath  whose  awful  hand  we  hold 

Dominion  over  palm  and  pine. 
Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget,  lest  we  forget." 

And  the  closing  verse,  as  it  should,  leads  to 
the  climax: 

"For  heathen  heart  that  puts  her  trust 

In  reeking  tube  and  iron  shard, 
All  valiant  dust  that  builds  on  dust. 

And  guarding  calls  not  Thee  to  Guard. 
For  frantic  boast  and  foolish  word. 
Thy  mercy  on  Thy  people.  Lord." 

Noble  sentiment  and  nobly  expressed!  Yet 
we  know  that  we  have  put  our  tinist  in  "reeking 
tube"  and  "iron  shard" ;  we  have  guarded  and 
called  not  Him  to  guard;  we  have  filled  our 
lips  with  "frantic  boast"  and  "foolish  word," 
forgetting  that  by  the  hand  of  God  we  hold 
our  wide  dominion  "over  palm  and  pine."  And 
we  knew  not  that  in  every  such  hour  we  had 
torn  our  sacred  compact  to  shreds  and  tossed  it 
away  like  "a  scrap  of  paper." 


A  SCRAP  OF  PAPER  127 

But  it  is  not  with  the  national  covenant  I 
must  leave  the  application  of  this  truth.  Let 
me  search  your  hearts — nay,  our  hearts,  let  me 
say — with  this  nearer  and  sterner  fact,  that  we 
have  made  and  broken  our  personal  covenants 
with  God.  Glad  would  I  be,  if  time  permitted, 
to  tell  of  His  unfailing  faithfulness — how  He 
has  kept  His  covenant  with  men,  how  before 
all  the  world  He  can  say,  "My  covenant  will  I 
not  break,  nor  alter  the  thing  that  is  gone  out 
of  my  lips.  Once  have  I  sworn  by  my  holiness 
that  I  will  not  lie  unto  David"  (Ps.  89:  34-35) . 
It  is  that  unfailing  covenant  that  is  the  glory 
of  the  world  and  the  one  bit  of  solid  footing  on 
which  men  of  all  the  ages  have  found  a  place 
to  stand.  Think  you  to-night  of  your  cove- 
nants with  God,  some  of  them  made  in  the 
open  before  men,  some  made  in  the  secret  place 
where  none  but  you  and  He  could  hear.  How 
have  you  kept  them  ?  Have  they  been  forgotten 
or  ignored  or  openly  repudiated?  Are  they 
nothing  more  to  you  than  "a  scrap  of  paper"? 
I  am  speaking  perhaps  to  some  young  man — 
your  case  is  typical  of  more  than  one  such  in- 
stance I  could  call  by  name — who  a  few  years 
ago  found  your  whole  heart  go  out  in  a  pas- 


128  WORLD  POWER 

sionate  love  to  the  woman  who  is  now  your 
wife.  She  was  then  an  ardent  Christian  girl 
with  strong  convictions  and  high  principles, 
true  and  loyal  to  her  faith  in  Christ.  And  she 
told  you  frankly  that  she  could  never  join  her 
life  to  that  of  any  man  who  did  not  share  with 
her  the  faith  she  had  in  Jesus  and  the  service 
she  loved  to  render  to  His  church.  And  that 
you  promised  to  do.  To  win  her  for  your  own 
you  pledged  yourself  to  God,  to  serve  her 
Christ  and  her  church,  and  on  the  sacredness  of 
that  promise  she  went  with  you  to  the  altar 
where  you  were  made  "one  flesh."  But  the  days 
have  grown  to  months  and  the  months  have 
grown  to  years,  and  you  have  not  redeemed 
your  pledge,  and  the  grey  shade  of  disappoint- 
ment has  come  into  her  eyes,  and  you  have  be- 
numbed her  soul  and  hardened  your  own,  and 
as  for  your  covenant  with  God  you  have  torn  it 
to  shreds  and  thrown  it  as  "a  scrap  of  paper" 
into  His  face.  I  am  speaking  perhaps  to  some 
man  or  woman — ^your  case  is  typical  of  more 
than  one  instance  in  my  own  ministry  that  I 
could  call  by  name — who  know  what  it  is  to  go 
down  to  the  very  verge  of  the  valley  of  death. 
You  are  not  unlike  one  that  I  think  of  now  to 


A  SCRAP  OF  PAPER  129 

whose  bed  I  was  called  more  than  one  night  in 
the  grim  conflict  for  life  to  help  him  if  possible 
through  prayer  to  beat  back  the  hosts  of  death. 
And  like  him  you  promised  that  if  God  gave 
you  back  your  life  it  would  be  His — from  that 
time  to  do  with  it  whatsoever  He  would.  And 
like  his  your  life  was  given  back — no  one  knows 
how.  The  doctor  could  not  explain  it,  nor  yet 
the  nurse,  nor  yet  the  minister  who  sat  beside 
you — save  in  this  that  God  healed  you  in  an- 
swer to  your  pledge  to  Him.  But  the  days 
have  gone,  one  excuse  after  another  has  been 
framed,  one  delay  has  followed  another,  and 
your  pledge  to  the  God  who  gave  you  back 
your  life  has  not  been  yet  redeemed.  With 
an  insolence  and  confidence  born  out  of  the 
very  strength  you  got  from  him  j^-ou  have  re- 
pudiated your  vows,  you  have  torn  your  com- 
pact to  shreds  and  flung  it  from  you  like  "a 
scrap  of  paper."  I  am  speaking  perchance  to 
some  father  and  mother — ^your  case,  too,  is  typi- 
cal of  more  than  one  instance  in  my  own  ob- 
servation that  I  could  call  by  name — who  in 
days  of  horror  and  nights  of  growing  despair 
fought  for  the  life  of  the  child  that  came  to 
bless  your  home.    Yours  may  not  be  unlike  one 


130  WORLD  POWER 

home  I  have  now  in  mind.  Two  Httle  girls  had 
blessed  their  home  circle  with  their  beauty  and 
love.  And  the  desire  of  their  hearts  seemed  all 
fulfilled  when  the  baby  boy  joined  their  happy 
group.  He  was  the  light  of  their  eyes.  And  I 
well  remember  the  night  when  it  seemed  that 
he  could  not  be  with  them  till  the  morning.  In 
the  utter  despair  of  that  hour  they  went  to 
God.  Together  they  promised  that  if  He 
would  spare  their  child  their  lives,  hitherto 
denied  to  Him,  would  be  devoted  to  His  ser- 
vice. And  the  mother  in  the  fervor  of  her  heart 
declared  that  if  the  boy  was  given  back  to 
them,  and  God  should  see  fit  to  accept  him,  she 
would  dedicate  him  to  the  ministry  of  the  Gos- 
pel of  the  Son  of  God.  And  she  promised,  too, 
that  she  would  train  him  up  with  that  hope  in 
mind  that  he  might  enter,  if  God  so  desired,  the 
highest  and  holiest  calling  among  men.  And 
the  child  recovered,  but  the  pledge  lies  broken, 
a  thing  that  is  repudiated,  "a  scrap  of  paper" 
they  have  thrown  back  into  the  face  of  God. 

What  have  you  done  with  your  vows,  for 
there  is  no  man  or  woman  here,  I  venture,  who 
has  not  in  some  way  or  in  some  hour  struck  a 
holy  compact  with  the  Lord?    I  call  upon  you 


A  SCRAP  OF  PAPER  131 

to-night  to  redeem  your  covenant.  I  call  upon 
you  to  renounce  your  treachery  to  the  Most 
High.  I  call  upon  you  to  yield  yourself  to 
Christ,  whose  great  mercy  in  you  and  love  for 
you  and  gifts  upon  you  with  your  acceptance 
and  enjoyment  of  His  daily  goodness  binds 
you  by  a  solemn  compact  that  no  honorable 
man  will  dare  to  break.  Is  that  covenant  to  be 
nothing  but  "a  scrap  of  paper"? 

"High  heaven,  that  heard  that  solemn  vow, 
That  vow  renewed  shall  daily  hear. 
Till  in  life's  latest  hour  I  bow, 

And  bless  in  death  a  bond  so  dear." 


VII 

BLOOD  AND  IRON:    THE  IMMO- 
RALITY OF  MILITARISM 


VII 

BLOOD  AND  IRON:     THE  IMMO- 
RALITY OF  MILITARISM 

Text: — "Because  thou  hast  had  a  perpetual  hatred, 
and  hast  shed  the  blood  of  the  children  of  Israel  by  the 
force  of  the  sword  in  the  time  of  their  calamity,  in  the 
time  that  their  iniquity  had  an  end.  Therefore,  as  I  live, 
saith  the  Lord  God,  I  will  prepare  thee  unto  blood,  and 
blood  shall  pursue  thee:  since  thou  hast  not  hated  blood, 
even  blood  shall  pursue  thee." — Ezekiel  S5 :  5-6. 

Perhaps  there  is  no  piece  of  literature  either 
in  the  Bible  or  out  of  it  that  portrays  in  fewer 
words  and  more  graphic  colors  the  diabolical 
character  of  the  spirit  of  militarism  as  it  has 
revealed  itself  in  every  country  and  in  every 
age.  The  whole  hell-begotten  family  of  this 
hell-begotten  mother  troop  past  us  in  this  chap- 
ter across  the  stage  of  Edom's  life.  Here  we 
see  the  "pride"  that  hardens  the  sensibilities; 
here  is  the  "hatred"  that  is  "perpetual";  here  is 
the  "revenge"  that  never  sleeps;  here  is  the 
blood-lust  that  wallows  in  carnage;  here  is 
"envy"  that  clouds  the  reason;  here  is  the  "blas- 

135 


136  WORLD  POWER 

phemy"  that  shudders  the  soul;  here  is  the  mad 
and  ruthless  ambition  that  tramples  under  foot 
the  sacred  rights  of  the  weak,  and  does  not  hes- 
itate ''to  wade  through  slaughter  to  a  throne 
and  shut  the  gates  of  mercy  on  mankind." 

In  those  days  of  Ezekiel  it  was  the  land  of 
Edom  that  was  seized  with  this  wild  insanity — 
an  insanity  that  has  never  failed  to  find  a  victim 
in  every  age  of  the  world's  life.  What  you  find 
in  Edom  you  will  find  in  Nero  at  Rome,  who 
gloated  over  the  human  torches  with  which  he 
lighted  his  gardens  as  he  burned  the  Christians 
to  death.  What  you  find  in  Nero  you  find  in 
Napoleon,  in  the  presence  of  whose  statue  in 
one  of  the  great  squares  of  Paris,  one  was 
heard  to  utter  these  words,  "Monster,  if  all  the 
blood  that  thou  hast  shed  were  gathered  in  this 
square  thou  wouldst  not  need  to  stoop  thy  lips 
to  drink."  What  you  find  in  Napoleon  you 
find  in  Prince  Bismarck,  whose  watchword  for 
the  German  Empu'e  was  summed  up  in  that 
notorious  phrase,  "Blood  and  iron!  by  blood 
and  iron  we  shall  extend  our  power."  And 
what  you  find  in  Bismarck  you  will  find  in  mod- 
em Prussia  that  has  sold  herself  to  blood,  that 
has  dedicated  her  powerful  intellect  to  the  de- 


BLOOD  AND  IRON  137 

vising  and  perfecting  of  the  greatest  fighting 
machine  the  world  has  ever  seen,  and  prosti- 
tuted her  soul  to  that  ferocious  hatred  that  has 
kindled  the  flame  of  war  throughout  the  world. 
Now  it  is  against  that  proud  and  envious  and 
blood-lusting  spirit  of  militarism  that  the  swift 
rebuke  of  God  is  heard,  not  only  in  this  chapter 
but  throughout  the  whole  Bible  from  Genesis 
to  Revelation.  There  can  be  no  doubt  about 
the  teaching  of  the  Scripture  in  regard  to  that. 
No  man  can  study  the  principles  of  Jesus  with- 
out arriving  at  the  firm  conviction  that  in  the 
intention  of  Christ  concerning  the  Kingdom 
and  its  progress  no  place  can  be  found  for  the 
spirit  of  "blood  and  iron."  It  is  doubtless  true 
— and  it  is  clear  enough  to  my  own  mind — that 
there  are  times  and  circumstances  when  war  is 
justifiable,  in  self  preservation,  in  the  defence 
of  hberties,  in  the  protection  of  the  weak,  but 
the  war  of  revenge,  of  aggression,  of  might,  of 
ambition — these  and  the  spirit  out  of  which 
they  spring  must  pass  forever  under  the  con- 
demnation not  only  of  Christianity  but  of  the 
whole  civilized  world.  It  is  doubtless  true — 
and  it  is  our  duty  if  possible  to  see  it — that 
there  are  many  great  moral  results  secured 


138  WORLD  POWER 

through  war,  but  that  is  not  due  to  the  thing 
in  itself  which  is  evil,  but  to  the  over-ruling 
wisdom  and  power  of  God  who  is  able  to  turn 
the  evil  to  good  account,  and  "make  the  very 
wrath  of  men  to  praise  Him."  After  all  that 
can  be  said  about  the  moral  sanctions  for  war 
and  the  moral  results  of  war,  the  fact  remains 
that  woven  into  the  fibre  of  our  modern  civiliza- 
tion there  is  that  spirit  of  militarism  that  noth- 
ing can  justify — ^blind,  revengeful,  aggressive, 
vaulting,  drunk  with  sight  of  power,  intoxi- 
cated with  the  taste  of  blood,  a  spirit  that  must 
be  cut  out  like  a  cancer,  a  spirit  which  in  the 
individual  or  the  nation  is  condemned  before 
the  bar  of  God's  justice  and  impeached  before 
the  conscience  of  the  world. 

Its  Bakbarous  Motives 

The  utter  wickedness  of  the  spirit  of  militar- 
ism is  apparent  when  you  search  the  motives 
out  of  which  it  springs.  It  is  not  the  noble  and 
heroic  that  gives  it  birth.  It  is  born  out  of  .the 
baser  animal  passions — darkest,  most  cruel, 
most  barbarous.  This  whirling  passion  that 
has  seized  the  Prussian  mind  is  not  the  product 


BLOOD  AND  IRON  139 

of  the  high  and  honorable  impulses  of  life.  It 
has  leaped  out  of  the  very  heart  of  hell.  Its 
progenitors  are  hatred  and  greed  and  ambition. 
It  is  always  so.  We  have  only  to  look  into  our 
own  hearts  to  learn  that.  No  matter  how  our 
judgment  may  condemn  it,  nor  how  we  may 
try  to  crush  the  beast  within,  nor  how  we  tell 
ourselves  that  it  is  devilish,  it  needs  no  more  at 
times  than  the  sound  of  fife  and  drum  to  wake 
these  barbarous  passions  and  make  us  drunk 
with  the  wild  wine  of  war.  We  know  quite 
well  what  Richard  le  Gallienne  meant  when  he 
wrote, 

War 

I  abhor. 

And  yet  how  sweet 

The  sound  along  the  marching  street 

Of  drum  and  fife,  and  I  forget 

Broken  old  mothers,  and  the  whole 

Dark  butchery  without  a  soul. 

Without  a  soul — save  this  bright  drink 
Of  heady  music,  sweet  as  hell; 
And  even  my  peace-abiding  feet 
Go  marching  with  the  marching  feet. 
For  yonder,  yonder,  goes  the  fife. 
And  what  care  I  for  human  life! 
The  tears  fill  my  astonished  eyes 
"And  my  full  heart  is  like  to  break; 


140  WORLD  POWER 

And  yet  'tis  all  embannered  lies — 
A  dream  those  drummers  make. 

Oh,  it  is  wickedness  to  clothe 

Yon  hideous  grinning  thing  that  stalks 

Hidden  in  music,  like  a  queen 

That  in  a  garden  of  glory  walks. 

Till  good  men  love  the  thing  they  loathe! 

Art,  thou  hast  many  infamies, 

But  not  an  infamy  like  this. 

Oh,  snap  the  fife  and  still  the  drum. 

And  show  the  monster  as  she  is! 

And  if  we  should  see  her  as  she  is  we  would 
revolt  from  her.  Tear  open  the  heart  of  this 
barbarous  thing  and  search  its  motives.  You 
will  find  the  lust  for  power.  To  rule  Europe, 
to  dominate  the  world,  to  dictate  the  terms  of 
existence  for  other  states,  to  hold  the  "place  in 
the  sun,"  to  play  the  God  for  the  universe — 
this  is  the  consuming  passion  of  the  Prussian 
mind.  Or  lower  than  the  lust  for  power  is  the 
lust  for  gain.  Behind  all  this  horrible  crime 
of  war  there  is  the  restless  greed  of  the  war- 
makers  who  foster  the  military  spirit  that  the 
race  in  armaments  may  go  on ;  who  create  war 
scares  that  they  may  reap  their  millions  out  of 
the  building  of  Dreadnoughts  and  siege  guns; 
who  change  the  fashion  of  weapons,  scrapping 


BLOOD  AND  IRON  141 

those  of  last  year  out  of  which  they  made  vast 
profits  and  introducing  new  models  this  year  to 
make  vaster  profits  still;  who  bribe  Parliaments 
and  corrupt  Cabinets  for  their  unholy  trade. 
Mr.  J.  A.  Hobson,  speaking  of  the  book  en- 
titled "The  War  Traders,"  by  Mr.  G.  H.  Fer- 
ris, says,  "The  story  is  positively  fascinating  in 
its  wickedness."  It  is  worth  noting  that  the 
wealthiest  woman  in  the  world  to-day  is  the 
young  woman  of  the  Krupp  family  which  owns 
the  immense  Krupp  works  in  which  Germany 
has  forged  her  mighty  engines  of  death.  Or 
deeper  than  the  lust  for  power  and  the  lust  for 
gain  is  the  lust  of  hate.  It  comes  out  in  the 
ideals  and  literature  of  the  German  people. 
Here  is  a  passage  from  the  pen  of  Dr.  Fuchs, 
a  German  educationist,  who  advocates  the  use 
of  the  schools  for  the  cultivation  of  hate: 
"Therefore  the  German  claim  of  the  day  must 
be — the  family  to  the  front.  The  state  has  to 
follow,  at  first  in  the  school,  then  in  foreign 
politics.  Education  to  hate.  Education  to  the 
estimation  of  hatred;  organization  of  hatred. 
Education  to  the  desire  for  hatred.  Let  us 
abolish  unripe  and  false  shame  before  brutality 
and  fanaticism.    We  must  not  hesitate  to  an- 


142  WORLD  POWER 

nounce :  To  us  is  given  faith,  hope  and  hatred, 
but  hatred  is  the  greatest  among  them."  Here 
is  a  verse  of  a  poem  by  Ernest  Lissauer  as  he 
voices  his  hate  against  England — translated  by 
Barbara  Henderson, 

"You  we  hate  with  a  lasting  hate, 
We  shall  never  forego  our  hate; 
Hate  by  water  and  hate  by  land 
Hate  of  the  head  and  hate  of  the  hand, 
Hate  of  the  hammer  and  hate  of  the  crown. 
Hate  of  seventy  millions  choking  down." 

It  is  out  of  that  spirit  that  our  militarism  is 
born  and  when  you  feel  its  hot  blast  upon  your 
face  it  is  as  though  you  stood  in  the  very  vesti- 
bules of  hell. 


Its  Mission  Is  Irrational  and  Futile 

Again  the  wickedness  of  militarism  appears 
because  it  is  so  utterly  irrational  and  futile,  its 
means  so  ill  adapted  to  the  end  it  has  in  view. 
For  it  is  supposed  to  secure  justice  among  men 
and  how  often  do  you  suppose  it  succeeds  in  its 
attempt.  Speaking  generally  there  have  been 
three  methods  adopted  by  which  men  have  tried 
to  secure  justice.    One  was  by  duelling,  which 


BLOOD  AND  IRON  143 

is  an  appeal  to  force;  another  by  casting  lots, 
which  is  an  appeal  to  chance;  and  another  by 
arbitration,  which  is  an  appeal  to  reason  and 
which  answers  to  our  various  forms  of  judica- 
ture. An  appeal  to  force,  chance  and  reason — 
and  of  all  these  the  appeal  to  force  is  the  least 
rational,  for  it  is  least  likely  to  secure  a  just 
decision.  It  is  not  always  that  you  can  count 
on  justice  being  on  the  side  of  might.  If  jus- 
tice is  based  on  the  appeal  to  force  then  the  day 
of  justice  in  the  case  of  Belgium  vs.  Germany 
would  be  far  distant.  It  was  Napoleon's  sneer 
that  "God  was  always  on  the  side  of  the  big- 
gest battalions,"  but  that  is  a  lie  and  Napoleon 
lived  long  enough  to  learn  the  falsity  of  such  a 
word  as  that.  The  truth  is  that  far  too  often 
God  is  ruled  out  of  the  case  altogether.  He  is 
defied;  He  is  forgotten;  and  out  of  the  shat- 
tered work  of  man  He  must  glean  the  harvest 
of  justice  as  best  His  wisdom  can. 

How  insane  it  all  seems  when  you  remember 
that  when  the  struggle  is  all  over  and  the  con- 
testants he  bleeding  and  helpless  they  will  have 
to  do  in  weakness  what  they  might  have  done  in 
strength ;  they  will  have  to  do  at  the  end  what 
they  might  have  done  at  the  beginning — to  ap- 


144  WORLD  POWER 

peal  to  reason  and  make  their  terms  of  peace. 
At  the  end  of  every  war  is  a  treaty,  and  every 
such  treaty,  welcome  as  it  may  be,  is  a  con- 
demnation of  the  very  thing  it  terminates. 
For  it  should  have  been,  and  might  have  been, 
made  before  instead  of  after,  and  had  it  come 
before  there  would  have  been  no  war  for  it  to 
close.  O,  the  utter  insanity  of  it  all !  We  need 
only  call  the  case  before  our  minds  to  see  how 
diabolical,  how  irrational,  how  ill-adapted  is 
the  method  to  secure  the  end  in  view.  Carljde 
exposes  its  absurdity  in  a  fine  passage  in  "Sar- 
tor Resartus" :  "What,  speaking  in  quite  un- 
official language,  is  the  net  purport  and  upshot 
of  war? — To  my  own  knowledge,  for  exam- 
ple, there  dwell  and  toil,  in  the  British  vil- 
lage of  Dumdrudge,  usually  some  five  hundred 
souls.  From  these,  there  are  selected,  during 
the  French  war,  say  thirty  able-bodied  men. 
Dumdrudge,  at  her  own  expense,  has  suckled 
and  nursed  them;  she  has,  not  without  diffi- 
culty and  sorrow,  fed  them  up  to  manhood, 
and  even  trained  them  to  crafts,  so  that  one 
can  weave,  another  build,  another  hammer,  and 
the  weakest  can  stand  under  thirty  stone  avoir- 
dupois.   Nevertheless,  amid  much  weeping  and 


BLOOD  AND  IRON  145 

swearing,  they  are  selected;  all  dressed  in  red; 
and  shipped  away,  at  the  public  charges,  some 
two  thousand  miles  or  say  only  to  the  south  of 
Spain ;  and  fed  there  till  wanted. 

"And  now  to  that  same  spot  in  the  south 
of  Spain  are  thirty  similar  French  artisans, 
from  a  French  Dumdrudge,  in  like  manner 
wending,  till  at  length,  after  infinite  effort, 
the  two  parties  come  into  actual  juxtaposition; 
and  thirty  stands  fronting  thirty,  each  with  a 
gun  in  his  hand. 

"Straightway  the  word  'Fire!'  is  given,  and 
they  blow  the  souls  out  of  one  another,  and 
in  place  of  sixty  brisk,  useful  craftsmen  the 
world  has  sixty  dead  carcases,  which  it  must 
bury  and  anew  shed  tears  for.  Had  these  men 
any  quarrel?  Busy  as  the  devil  is,  not  the 
smallest!  They  lived  far  enough  apart;  were 
the  entirest  strangers;  nay  in  so  wide  a  uni- 
verse, there  was  even,  unconsciously,  by  com- 
merce, some  mutual  helpfulness  between  them. 
How  then?  Simpleton!  Their  governors  had 
fallen  out,  and  instead  of  shooting  one  another, 
had  the  cunning  to  make  these  poor  blockheads 
shoot." 

Futile  indeed  is  the  mission  of  militarism  in 


146  WORLD  POWER 

securing  justice  or  securing  peace.  The  watch- 
word of  European  miUtarism  for  the  past  gen- 
eration has  been,  "To  secure  peace  be  prepared 
for  war."  That  He  is  discredited  forever.  Has 
not  this  war  leapt  out  of  an  armed  peace?  Can 
it  be  doubted  that  it  made  arbitration  impos- 
sible ?  Did  not  the  combatants  refuse  to  appeal 
to  reason  because  they  were  organized  and 
equipped  to  the  last  button  on  their  uniform 
and  the  last  drop  of  oil  in  the  machinery  of 
war?  Is  it  not  true  that  Europe  has  been  an 
armed  camp ;  its  manhood  a  drilled  body  of  sol- 
diers; its  millions  spent  on  battleships  or  field 
artillery;  its  idle  officers  eager  for  war  that 
they  might  justify  their  long  years  of  train- 
ing? No!  No!  The  sword  has  been  tried  for 
centuries  as  a  means  to  secure  peace  and  for- 
ever for  civilization  there  has  been  nailed  to 
the  wall  that  falsehood  that  the  way  to  guar- 
antee peace  is  to  stand  prepared  for  war. 

Its  Attitude  is  Treason  Against  God 

The  wickedness  of  the  spirit  of  militarism 
appears  from  another  angle.  It  is  high  trea- 
son against  the  constituted  authority  of  the 


BLOOD  AND  IRON  U7 

universe.  In  God  is  the  sovereign  power.  The 
spirit  of  militarism,  such  as  I  have  described, 
is  a  revolt  against  His  authority;  it  is  a  de- 
fiance of  His  constituted  power.  It  is  an 
attempt  to  leap  into  the  throne  of  the  eternal ; 
it  is  the  assumption  of  that  sword  that  belongs 
alone  to  His  hand  for  "Vengeance  is  mine,  I 
will  repay,  saith  the  Lord."  I  stated  in  the 
earlier  part  of  my  sermon  that  there  were  times 
and  circumstances  when  war  was  justifiable. 
But  no  war  is  justifiable  on  both  sides.  Some- 
one has  been  the  aggressor.  It  may  be  that 
one  nation  is  clear  in  conscience,  in  self-de- 
fence, or  in  the  protection  of  the  weak,  but 
God  will  never  justify  the  nation  that  was  the 
aggressor  in  revenge,  or  ambition,  or  greed. 
In  every  such  terrible  struggle  as  we  see  to- 
day someone  has  arrogated  to  himself  the  Di- 
vine prerogative.  For  Christ  is  the  appointed 
King  of  Kings  and  Lord  of  Lords.  His  will 
is  the  will  for  the  whole  earth,  and  they  who, 
driven  on  by  the  lust  for  gain  or  the  lust  for 
power  or  the  lust  of  hate,  "take  the  sword  shall 
perish  by  the  sword,"  for  in  so  doing  they  have 
set  themselves  against  the  mighty  law  of  Christ 
within  the  earth.    At  bottom  then  it  is  atheis- 


148  -   WORLD  POWER 

tic.  It  is  not  just  to  say  that  it  is  brutal;  that 
would  be  a  slander  on  the  brute  creation  for 
they  would  never  do  the  deeds  that  men  have 
done  within  these  past  few  weeks.  It  is  not 
just  to  say  that  it  is  barbarous,  for  the  barbari- 
ans have  not  stooped  lower  than  the  so-called 
civilized  nations  in  those  atrocities  that  have 
been  perpetrated  in  the  name  of  culture.  There 
is  only  one  name  for  it — it  is  devilish,  satanic, 
springing  out  of  the  spirit  of  hell,  and  in  its 
last  analysis  it  is  not  only  atheistic  but  it  is  a 
blow  aimed  at  the  constituted  authority  and 
sovereignty  of  God. 

The  Personal  Equation 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  all  this  comes  back  to 
fit  itself  upon  the  individual  in  his  relation  to 
Christ.  The  spirit  of  militarism  against  man 
roots  itself  in  the  spirit  of  militarism  against 
God.  And  if  you  have  not  surrendered  your- 
self to  the  Lordship  of  Jesus  you  have  set 
yourself  against  the  constituted  authority  of 
the  universe.  For  it  is  written  of  Him  that 
"He  must  reign — He  must  reign  until  all  His 
enemies  shall  be  put  under  His  feet."    And  it 


BLOOD  AND  IRON  149 

is  written  again  of  Him  that,  "God  also  hath 
highly  exalted  Him,  and  given  Him  a  name 
that  is  above  every  name;  that  at  the  name  of 
Jesus  every  knee  should  bow,  of  things  in 
heaven,  and  things  in  earth,  and  things  under 
the  earth;  and  that  every  tongue  should  con- 
fess that  Jesus  Christ  is  Lord,  to  the  glory  of 
God  the  Father."  And  every  one  who  does 
not  so  bow  and  so  confess  is  a  rebel  in  God's 
great  world.  He  is  defying  the  government 
of  Christ.  He  is  a  centre  for  the  forces  of 
sedition — sedition  against  Him  who  by  crea- 
tion and  redemption  has  established  every  claim 
upon  our  allegiance  and  our  love.  There  is 
not  a  high  thinking  man  or  woman  here  who 
has  not  in  the  past  few  days  entertained  a  feel- 
ing of  contempt  for  those  leaders  in  the  South 
African  revolt — men  who  a  few  years  ago  took 
the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  British  crown, 
who  have  enjoyed  since  that  day  the  benefits 
of  her  liberty,  who  accepted  positions  of  trust 
in  the  councils  of  the  nation,  and  who  in  the 
moment  of  the  Empire's  great  peril  have  seized 
the  opportunity  to  strike  a  blow  at  her  heart. 
But  what  shall  be  said  of  those  who  owe  their 
very  being  unto  Christ,  who  have  been  cared 


150  WORLD  POWER 

for  and  nurtured  through  these  years  by  His 
love,  who  enjoy  the  Hberties  of  this  land  be- 
cause of  His  work,  who  have  been  redeemed 
upon  the  cross  by  the  incalculable  price  of  His 
blood — what  shall  be  said  of  those,  who  in  the 
full  enjoyment  of  His  goodness  have  lifted 
their  hand  in  rebelhon  to  smite  Him  from 
His  throne?  My  friends,  the  most  pressing 
problem  of  this  moment  for  you  is  the  spirit 
of  militarism  that  you  hold  against  the  author- 
ity of  Christ.  And  I  summon  you  to-night  to 
lay  down  your  arms  of  rebelhon  against  Him. 
I  summon  you  to  yield  to  His  will  and  to  the 
Empire  of  that  love  whose  bondage  is  the  guar- 
antee of  your  fullest  freedom. 


VIII 

TREASON    TO    CULTURE:   THE 
MARKS  OF  PROGRESS 


VIII 

TREASON    TO    CULTURE:   THE 
MARKS  OF  PROGRESS 

Text: — "Woe  unto  you  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypo- 
crites! for  ye  are  like  unto  whited  sepulchres,  which 
indeed  appear  beautiful  outward,  but  are  within  full 
of  dead  men's  bones  and  of  all  uncleanness."  Matthew 
23:27. 

These  are  strong  and  terrible  words,  fall- 
ing as  they  do  from  the  lips  of  Him  who  was 
the  Lord  of  incarnate  love.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  those  words  addressed  to  the  cities  of 
His  day — Chorazin,  Bethsaida,  and  Caper- 
naum— no  words  perhaps  ever  fell  from  our 
Lord's  lips  that  voice  such  a  merciless  exposure 
as  do  these  of  the  shams  and  hypocrisies  of 
men.  There  were  some  kinds  of  sin  in  the  pres- 
ence of  which  our  Saviour  spoke  with  the 
greatest  tenderness  and  the  deepest  love,  for 
it  was  written  of  Him,  "The  bruised  reed  He 
shall  not  break  and  the  smoking  flax  He  shall 
not  quench."    But  there  were  other  kinds  of 

153 


154  WORLD  POWER 

sin  that  required  heroic  treatment  and  these 
never  failed  to  kindle  the  flame  of  His  high 
and  holy  indignation.  Spiritual  pride  was  one 
of  them;  self -righteousness  was  another,  cov- 
etousness  was  another;  oppression  of  the 
weak  was  another.  But  the  one  that  kindled 
the  hottest  flame  of  His  anger  was  that  hypoc- 
risy that  harbored  a  spirit  of  evil  within  while 
it  carried  a  fair  profession  without.  Twelve 
times  in  the  lesson  I  have  read  He  hurled  His 
anathemas  against  it.  Seven  times  out  of  the 
twelve  He  addressed  them  as  "hypocrites"; 
twice  He  calls  them  "blind  guides" ;  twice  He 
calls  them  "fools  and  bhnd" ;  and  once  He  ad- 
dressed them  as  a  "generation  of  vipers."  But 
of  all  His  withering  words  against  sham  and 
the  false  exterior  of  life  this  figure  of  the  text 
is  perhaps  the  most  scathing  and  rebuking  of 
them  all:  "For  ye  are  like  unto  whited  sepul- 
chres which  indeed  appear  beautiful  outward, 
but  within  are  full  of  dead  men's  bones  and 
of  all  uncleanness." 

The  imagery  behind  this  denunciation  was 
one  that  would  make  a  very  powerful  appeal 
to  the  vivid  imagination  of  every  Jewish  mind. 
These  whited  sepulchres  gleaming  in  the  sun 


TREASON  TO  CULTURE      155 

were  a  familiar  feature  in  the  landscape.  They 
were  not  separate  buildings  like  the  stately 
mausoleums  of  Rome.  They  were  simply  cav- 
erns cut  in  the  face  of  the  limestone  rock  with 
a  great  stone  set  up  to  close  the  opening.  Once 
a  year  these  stones  were  whitewashed  not  for 
the  purpose  of  making  them  beautiful  but  to 
warn  the  people  that  a  grave  was  there  lest 
they  should  touch  it,  and  touching  be  defiled. 
Many  a  time  our  Lord  had  wondered  at  them 
when  He  rambled  as  a  lad  among  the  hills 
of  Nazareth.  You  know  how  the  darkness 
and  the  white  stones  and  the  thought  of  the 
dead  would  stir  the  imagination  of  a  boy.  It 
had  burned  itself  into  His  brain  and  years 
afterwards  in  His  preaching  whenever  He  saw 
the  fair  exterior  and  the  outward  profession, 
knowing  that  behind  there  lay  pride  and  ar- 
rogance and  spiritual  decay  and  cruelty,  His 
mind  flew  back  to  the  vivid  picture  of  His 
youth  and  He  turned  to  say  to  them :  "Ye  are 
like  the  whited  sepulchres  I  was  wont  to  see 
at  Nazareth,  that  appeared  so  beautiful  out- 
wardly but  within  were  full  of  uncleanness  and 
dead  men's  bones." 

Terrible  as  the  figure  is,  it  will  always  re- 


156  WORLD  POWER 

main  as  the  truest  and  most  merciless  expo- 
sure of  a  spurious  culture  in  all  its  forms.  Here 
we  are  reminded  that  "man  looketh  upon  the 
outward  appearance  but  God  looketh  on  the 
heart."  Here  we  are  warned  that  the  hid- 
den rottenness  of  life  will  be  eventually  ex- 
posed. Here  we  are  informed  in  the  plainest 
of  terms  that  all  the  decoration  and  garnish- 
ing and  polishing  of  life  is  useless  without  a 
cleansing  from  within,  and  no  great  and  last- 
ing transformation  of  society  can  ever  be  ex- 
pected that  does  not  touch  and  regenerate  the 
secret  springs  of  being. 

The  False  Conception  of  Cultuee 

At  the  present  moment  the  world  is  vastly 
interested  in  the  idea  of  culture  because  Ger- 
many has  presented  to  us  a  type  of  culture 
which  she  has  nourished  with  the  most  assid- 
uous care  for  the  past  generation.  You  are 
all  well  aware  that  the  German  Empire  in 
its  present  form  came  to  its  birth  under  the 
dominance  of  one  great  idea, — the  profound 
conviction  of  the  supreme  value  of  the  Teu- 
tonic mind  and  the  German  element  for  the 


TREASON  TO  CULTURE      157 

civilization  of  the  world.  With  all  their  char- 
acteristic energy  and  thoroughness  they  under- 
took the  cultivation  of  that  Teutonic  type. 
They  perfected  their  government,  reorganized 
their  system  of  education,  expanded  their  com- 
merce, and  developed  their  science  and  their 
art.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  Germans  have 
been  by  all  means  the  most  comprehensive  and 
discriminating  students  of  modern  times.  The 
systematic  thoroughness  with  which  everything 
is  done  in  the  world  of  intellect  in  Germany  is 
almost  inconceivable,  and  they  have  succeeded 
in  developing  an  imposing  system  of  culture 
that  has  become  a  powerful  factor  in  the  life 
of  Europe  and  in  the  life  of  the  world.  There 
are  many  respects  in  which  the  students  of 
every  nation  have  sat  at  the  feet  of  Germany 
and  have  learned  of  her  during  the  past  gen- 
eration. She  has  become  the  acknowledged 
leader  in  science  and  technical  education,  is 
regarded  by  many  as  the  pioneer  in  the  world 
of  philosophy  and  by  some  as  the  pathfinder  in 
the  realms  of  theological  thought.  Neither  do 
we  forget  that  this  was  a  culture  that  had  its 
roots  in  a  truly  great  and  glorious  past.  We 
gratefully  remember  that  it  was  Germany  who 


158  WORLD  POWER 

gave  us  Luther,  the  father  of  modern  Protes- 
tantism; that  it  was  Germany  who  gave  us 
Kant,  the  father  of  modern  philosophy;  that 
it  was  Germany  who  gave  us  Goethe  with  his 
matchless  poetry  and  Beethoven  and  Wagner 
with  their  majestic  music. 

Yes!  a  noble  past  but  the  German  culture 
of  to-day  has  fallen  far  below  that  level.  It 
has  gathered  into  its  bosom  many  elements  of 
barbarism  and  might.  It  fed  itself  upon  the 
philosophy  of  Nietzsche  and  kindred  cults,  who 
taught  that  might  is  right,  that  the  survival 
of  the  fittest  leaves  no  place  for  the  unfit,  that 
the  fittest  are  those  who  are  able  by  pure  force 
to  push  themselves  to  the  top,  that  the  strong 
are  bound  by  no  obligations  to  the  weak. 

"That   they  shall  take   who  have  the  power 
And  they  shall  keep  who  can." 

Its  ideals  are  not  the  ideals  of  Christ;  its  mo- 
tives are  not  the  motives  of  Jesus.  It  has  taken 
the  great  words  of  humanity,  like  Valor  and 
Honor  and  Power  and  Heroism,  and  emptied 
them  of  their  noble  contents  only  to  fill  them 
with  the  idea  of  Brute  Force.  It  engendered 
within  its  heart  the  spirit  of  pride,  the  spirit 


TREASON  TO  CULTURE      159 

of  arrogance,  and  a  haughty  selfishness  that 
trampled  underfoot  the  sacred  prerogatives  of 
the  soul.  Its  insolence  had  no  bounds.  It  has 
been  generally  agreed  that  there  is  nothing 
quite  so  insolent  and  clumsy  in  the  interna- 
tional contact  as  Prussian  diplomacy.  It  has 
reversed  the  standards  of  character  and  con- 
duct that  were  set  by  Jesus;  it  has  written 
the  Beatitudes  to  read:  "Ye  have  heard  how 
in  olden  times  it  was  said,  'Blessed  are  the 
meek  for  they  shall  inherit  the  earth.'  But  I 
say  unto  you :  Blessed  are  the  valiant  for  they 
shall  make  the  earth  their  throne.  And  ye 
have  heard  men  say,  'Blessed  are  the  poor  in 
spirit,'  but  I  say  unto  you:  Blessed  are  the 
great  in  soul  and  the  free  in  spirit  for  they 
shall  enter  Valhalla.  And  ye  have  heard  men 
say:  'Blessed  are  the  peace-makers,'  but  I  say 
unto  you :  Blessed  are  the  war-makers  for  they 
shall  be  called,  if  not  the  children  of  Jahve, 
the  children  of  Odin,  who  is  greater  than 
Jahve."  And  hidden  away  in  the  heart  of  this 
whited  sepulchre  of  modern  culture  is  that 
which  is  most  deadly  of  all — a  passionate  ha- 
tred, that  never  sleeps,  that  summons  heart 
and  hand  and  head  to  the  work  of  revenge, — 


160  WORLD  POWER 

a  hatred  that  issues  in  a  cruelty  and  ruthless- 
ness,  that  gluts  on  blood,  and  leaves  behind  its 
smoking"  trail  the  mangled  bodies  of  the  de- 
fenceless and  the  innocent,  the  aged,  the  mother 
and  the  child.  It  was  the  charge  of  Harnack, 
the  greatest  of  Germany's  theologians,  that 
in  taking  the  field  against  Germany,  Britain 
was  guilty  of  a  "treason  to  culture."  Trea- 
son to  culture  forsooth!  If  this  be  the  culture 
they  offer  then  let  it  be  part  of  Britain's  never- 
dying  glory  that  in  the  hour  of  the  world's 
great  danger  she  should  prove  a  traitor  to  a 
culture  such  as  that! 

The  True  Conception  of  Culture 

Over  against  this  spurious  product  we  set 
the  true  culture  as  it  is  revealed  in  Christ. 
When  I  came  to  this  point  in  the  preparation 
of  my  sermon  and  looked  about  in  my  own 
mind  for  some  statement  of  pure  culture,  some 
description  of  the  refined  and  noble  character, 
I  found  myself  come  back  invariably  to  those 
words  with  which  our  Lord  opened  His  ser- 
mon on  the  INIount.  They  are  known  as  the 
Beatitudes.     They  might  also  be  called  the 


TREASON  TO  CULTURE       161 

Elements  of  a  True  Culture.  They  who  pos- 
sess those  qualities  of  heart  and  mind  are  the 
exponents  of  the  highest  form  of  culture.  It 
will  be  worth  our  while  to  refresh  our  minds 
with  this  Divine  summary  of  life  at  its  best 
and  highest: 

Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit:  for  theirs  is  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven. 

Blessed  are  they  that  mourn:  for  they  shall  be  com- 
forted. 

Blessed  are  the  meek:  for  they  shall  inherit  the  earth. 

Blessed  are  they  which  do  hunger  and  thirst  after  right- 
eousness: for  they  shall  be  filled. 

Blessed  are  the  merciful:  for  they  shall  obtain  mercy. 

Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart:  for  they  shall  see  God. 

Blessed  are  the  peacemakers:  for  they  shall  be  called 
the  children  of  God. 

Blessed  are  they  which  are  persecuted  for  righteousness' 
sake:  for  theirs  is  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

These  are  the  qualities  that  make  for  culture. 
The  poor  in  spirit,  the  mourners,  the  meek, 
they  who  hunger  and  thirst  for  righteousness, 
the  merciful,  the  pure  in  heart,  the  peace- 
makers, the  persecuted — these  are  the  men  and 
women  who  have  stepped  into  the  true  aris- 
tocracy of  refinement,  whose  presence  is  a 
blessing  unto  men  and  whose  reward  will  never 
fail. 


162  WORLD  POWER 

Should  you  ask  for  an  illustrious  example 
of  that  perfect  culture  you  will  find  it  in  Him 
by  whose  lips  those  words  were  first  of  all 
pronounced.  His  heart  is  pure  and  warm; 
His  mind  is  clear  and  unprejudiced;  His  spirit 
is  without  guile ;  He  bore  no  bitterness,  "Who, 
when  He  was  reviled,  reviled  not  again ;  when 
He  suffered  threatened  not;  but  committed 
Himself  to  Him  that  judgeth  righteously"; 
He  is  strong  with  all  the  strength  of  a  lion 
for  He  is  the  "Lion  of  the  tribe  of  Judah"; 
He  is  gentle  with  all  the  gentleness  of  a  Lamb 
for  "He  is  the  Lamb  of  God";  He  holds  in 
perfect  poise  all  the  apposites  of  character.  To 
put  it  in  George  Dana  Boardman's  splendid 
summary,  He  was;  "gracious  without  conde- 
scension; just  without  severity;  lenient  without 
laxity;  flexible  without  vacillation;  patient 
without  stoicism;  decisive  without  bluntness; 
imperative  without  imperiousness ;  heroic  with- 
out coarseness;  indignant  without  bitterness; 
forgiving  without  feebleness ;  sociable  without 
familiarity;  in  a  word  He  was  absolutely  per- 
fect, and  yet  absolutely  natural." 

It  is  only  as  we  come  into  the  clear  at- 
mosphere of  such  lofty  standards  and  perfect 


TREASON  TO  CULTURE       163 

character  that  we  realize  how  far  removed  is 
the  German  ideal  from  all  that  is  sound  and 
pure  in  the  realm  of  culture.  Put  up  against 
the  background  of  the  Christ  spirit  and  the 
Clirist  teaching  it  is  not  only  found  wanting 
but  proclaims  itself  as  diametrically  opposed 
to  all  truer  instincts  of  the  higher  life  of  man. 

Society  and  the  Individual 

In  the  light  then  of  our  Lord's  test  as  ap- 
plied to  life  either  in  society  or  in  the  indi- 
vidual two  conclusions  must  become  clear. 

1.  Society's  transformation  must  he 
wrought  from  within.  We  have  an  old  prov- 
erb: "Scratch  a  Russian  and  you  will  find  a 
Tartar,"  which  is  only  another  way  of  saying 
that  the  veneer  of  civilization  leaves  the  soul 
untouched.  If  the  present  events  have  taught 
us  anything  they  have  taught  us  that  if  you 
scratch  civilization  you  will  find  beneath  its 
veneer  the  elements  of  barbarism.  Time  has 
proved  that  you  may  make  a  community  rich, 
and  comfortable,  and  clean,  and  intelligent, 
and  aesthetic,  and  still  leave  its  moral  life  im- 
changed.    What  society  demands  for  its  trans- 


164  WORLD  POWER 

formation  is  not  some  adornment  from  with- 
out but  some  new  impulse  from  within;  not 
some  revising-  but  some  renewal;  not  some  re- 
formation but  some  regeneration.  Society  can 
never  be  saved  on  the  horizontal  except  as  it 
is  saved  in  the  perpendicular.  Let  us  have 
our  art  and  education  and  the  cultivation  of 
the  aesthetic  and  the  improvement  of  the  con- 
ditions under  which  we  live.  These  things  we 
ought  to  do  and  not  to  leave  the  others  un- 
done, but  let  us  never  imagine  that  we  have 
reached  a  true  culture  until  our  moral  stand- 
ards are  set  to  the  standards  of  Christ  and  the 
spiritual  impulses  of  the  nation's  life  flow  out 
from  righteousness  and  justice  and  truth. 

2.  Individual  salvation  demands  an  inward 
change.  It  is  difficult  for  our  so-called  culture 
to  comprehend  that  necessity.  The  New 
Testament  furnished  the  most  outstanding  ex- 
ample of  that.  If  ever  there  was  a  man  in 
Jerusalem  who  might  have  been  regarded  as  a 
man  of  culture  that  man  was  Nicodemus.  Yet 
to  this  man  Jesus  said  in  the  most  unequivocal 
terms:  "Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you  except 
a  man  be  bom  again  he  cannot  see  the  King- 
dom of  God."     "Ye  must  be  born  again.'* 


TREASON  TO  CULTURE      165 

There  is  something  in  this  finality  of  Jesus 
from  which  there  is  no  appeal.  In  every  in- 
stance where  Jesus  opens  a  sentence  with 
"Verily,  verily"  there  follows  a  pronouncement 
that  admits  of  no  qualification.  And  in  every 
instance  where  Jesus  says,  "except"  and  "can- 
not" you  may  know  that  He  has  reached  the  ir- 
reducible minimum.  And  in  every  instance 
where  Jesus  says,  "must"  you  may  know  that 
there  stands  behind  Him  the  compulsion  of 
eternity. 

There  is  something  therefore  tremendously 
final  in  His  word  to  this  cultured  man.  No 
man  could  be  more  surprised  to  hear  it  than 
Nicodemus.  Nicodemus  was  the  last  man  in 
all  Jerusalem  who  thought  that  he  needed  to 
be  bom  again.  He  was  a  ruler  of  the  Jews. 
He  was  a  master  in  Israel.  He  belonged  to 
the  highest  religious  body  in  the  land.  He 
was  learned  in  the  Scriptures.  He  was  con- 
nected with  and  practised  the  highest  moral- 
ity. Nicodemus  had  always  taken  it  for  grant- 
ed that  if  the  Kingdom  came  in  his  day  he 
would  be  taken  up  to  sit  in  one  of  the  highest 
seats.  It  had  never  once  entered  his  head 
that  he  needed  to  be  anything  else  than  he  was 


166  WORLD  POWER 

— a  respectable,  moral  man,  devoted  to  the 
Church  and  State  and  honored  in  their  high 
offices.  What  a  blow  in  the  face  it  must  have 
been  for  Nicodemus  to  be  told,  and  told  by 
the  King  Himself,  that  he  had  not  reached 
the  true  culture  of  life  and  never  would  until 
he  had  been  born  again. 

Let  us  not  marvel  at  that  either  in  his  case 
or  in  our  own.  The  truth  is  that  the  only  way 
to  truly  enter  into  a  kingdom  is  to  be  born 
into  it.  Except  a  man  be  born  with  brains  he 
cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  intellect. 
Except  a  man  be  born  with  artistic  instincts  he 
cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  art.  Ex- 
cept a  man  be  born  with  poetic  impulses  he 
cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  poetry. 
Poets  are  bom  not  made.  So  are  Christians, 
who  at  their  best  represent  the  highest  culture. 
Reasons  enough  there  are,  God  knows,  why 
we  require  such  a  miracle  upon  our  inner  life. 
Eveiy  other  conceivable  means  has  been  tried 
to  make  life  different  but  it  has  not  availed. 
Philosophy  was  tried.  Philanthropy  was  tried. 
Reformation  was  tried.  Environment  was 
tried.  But  all  in  vain.  Nothing  short  of  a 
regeneration  from  within  will  make  hfe  new 


TREASON  TO  CULTURE       167 

and  touch  it  with  the  beauty  of  the  true  cul- 
ture. Truly  Jesus  knew  whereof  He  was 
speaking  when  He  said:  "Ye  must,  ye  must  be 
bom  again." 

My  friends,  this  is  the  true  culture.  By 
all  means,  let  us  better  the  conditions  under 
which  we  live.  Let  us  cultivate  the  aesthetic. 
Let  us  store  our  minds  with  knowledge.  Let 
us  surround  ourselves  with  noble  and  refined 
associations,  but  let  us  never  imagine  that  in 
so  doing  we  have  attained  unto  the  true  cul- 
ture. That  is  only  reached  through  the  pos- 
session of  a  mind  and  heart  renewed  by  the 
grace  of  God  and  led  captive  to  the  will  of 
Christ. 

"One  thing  I  of  the  Lord  desire. 
For  all  my  way  hath  miry  been. 
Be  it  by  water  or  by  fire, 
O,  make  me  clean !   O,  make  me  clean ! 

So  wash  me  thou  without,  within. 
Or  purge  with  fire  if  that  must  be. 
No  matter  how,  if  only  sin 
Die  out  in  me,  die  out  in  me." 


IX 

PEACE  WITH  HONOR:  THE  FOUN- 
DATIONS OF  PEACE 


IX 

PEACE  WITH  HONOR:  THE  FOUN- 
DATIONS  OF  PEACE 

Text: — "And  the  work  of  righteousness  shall  be 
peace,  and  the  effect  of  righteousness  quietness  and 
peace  forever." — Isaiah  32:  17. 

The  popular  phrase  to  which  your  atten- 
tion is  invited  is  one  that  has  long  held  a  place 
in  the  vocabulary  of  every  honorable  nation. 
Peace  they  must  have  but  it  must  be  "peace 
with  honor."  The  sword  must  be  sheathed  but 
it  must  not  be  sheathed  in  shame.  There  may 
be  defeat  but  it  must  be  defeat  that  has  no 
disgrace.  Peace  with  honor!  Seldom  perhaps 
has  that  phrase  sent  a  deeper  thrill  through 
Britain  than  in  those  stormy  days  when  Dis- 
raeli's hand  was  on  the  helm  of  state.  In  the 
presence  of  a  great  international  crisis  that 
threatened  almost  every  country  in  Europe  he 
conducted  at  Berlin  those  negotiations  that  se- 
cured an  honorable  peace.     On  his  return  to 

171 


172  WORLD  POWER 

England,  and  in  his  own  mysterious  fashion, 
he  announced  the  result  of  his  mission  in  those 
memorable  words,  "Peace  with  honor."  It  was 
a  word  that  sent  the  nation  into  a  dehrium 
of  joy  and  made  them  doubly  delirious  when 
they  knew  that  not  only  was  peace  secured  but 
it  was  a  peace  in  which  the  country's  honor  was 
truly  and  honorably  sustained.  For  that  is  a 
sentiment  that  burns  in  the  heart  of  every  true 
patriot.  He  demands  it  for  himself  and  he 
demands  it  all  the  more  for  his  country.  If 
he  will  live  he  must  live  honorably ;  if  he  must 
die  he  will  die  without  disgrace,  and  there  is 
no  man  with  the  faintest  spark  of  nobility  in 
him  who  does  not  understand  the  lofty  senti- 
ment of  Patrick  Henry,  "Give  me  liberty  or 
give  me  death." 

It  was  that  sort  of  liberty  and  peace  that  the 
prophet  Isaiah  saw  as  he  turned  his  eyes  away 
to  the  golden  days  that  lay  beyond.  "The  fruit 
of  righteousness  shall  be  peace."  The  peace 
that  was  coming  was  a  peace  in  which  the  na- 
tion could  rejoice.  It  was  a  peace  in  which 
all  that  was  best  and  highest  would  be  secured 
and  all  that  was  base  and  unjust  would  be  sub- 
dued.   That  was  a  peace  that  would  be  based 


PEACE  WITH  HONOR         173 

on  a  righteous  government,  for  he  says,  "A 
king  shall  reign  in  righteousness  and  princes 
shall  rule  in  judgment."  That  was  a  peace 
that  would  protect  the  individual  man  and 
make  him  a  potent  factor  in  the  life  of  the 
nation,  for  he  says  that  "a  man  shall  be  a  hid- 
ing placfe  from  the  wind  and  a  covert  from 
the  tempest,  as  rivers  of  water  in  a  dry  place 
and  as  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary 
land."  That  was  a  peace  that  redeemed  the 
foolliardy  and  the  coward  for  "the  heart  of  the 
rash  shall  understand  knowledge  and  the 
tongue  of  the  stammerer  shall  be  ready  to 
speak  plainly."  That  was  a  peace  that  would 
provide  for  all  the  natural  resources  of  the 
land  for  "the  wilderness  shall  be  a  fruitful 
field  and  the  fruitful  field  be  counted  for  a 
forest."  That  is  the  peace  that  every  true 
nation  has  always  desired  and  that  is  the  peace 
for  which,  I  trust,  we  long  and  pray  and  fight 
in  this  most  awful  struggle  of  the  world's  dark 
night. 

The  Cry  for  Peace 

Peace !    Yes,  but  remember  it  must  be  peace 
with  honor  I    Let  me  remind  you  of  what  is  tak- 


174  WORLD  POWER 

ing  place  to-night — ^has  taken  place  indeed  to- 
day throughout  the  whole  wide  world.  On 
this  Sabbath  day — the  Sabbath  day  of  God — 
there  has  risen  from  the  lowly  altars  of  bleed- 
ing hearts  and  from  the  lofty  altars  of  ancient 
shrines  the  agonizing  cry  to  God  for  peace. 
It  was  lifted  in  the  severe  and  simple  chapels 
of  England  by  plain  and  earnest  men  with  no 
other  ordaining  hand  upon  them  than  the  un- 
seen hand  of  the  Eternal.  It  was  echoed  in 
the  great  cathedrals  through  "long-drawn  aisle 
and  fretted  vault"  by  men  behind  whose  ordi- 
nation vows  there  stand  the  unbroken  succes- 
sion of  a  priestly  order.  It  was  uttered  by  the 
devout  Roman  Catholic  in  the  shattered 
churches  of  Belgium,  by  the  sad  and  reverent 
peasant  over  whose  hearth  there  passed  the  dev- 
astating horrors  of  war.  It  resounded  in  the 
stately  ritual  of  the  Greek  Catholic  Church 
of  Russia  threading  its  way  to  God  through 
heavy  incensed  air.  It  was  wrung  out  of  the 
anguished  hearts  of  fearful  wives  who  fear 
that  they  shall  never  see  again  the  faces  of 
men  who  are  more  to  them  than  life  itself.  It 
was  distilled  in  blood-drops  from  the  souls  of 
mothers   who   pass   through   their   sevenfold 


PEACE  WITH  HONOR        175 

Gethsemane  for  sons  who  gladly  cast  away 
their  lives  in  a  rapture  of  courage  and  sacri- 
fice. From  every  heart  that  is  not  stone  such 
prayers  as  those  shall  rise.  But  this  will  be 
their  one  great  reservation — it  must  be  peace 
with  honor.  Even  in  the  falling  blood-drops 
of  mothers'  prayers  you  will  hear  that  reserva- 
tion. Peace!  but  peace  with  honor!  Peace! 
but  not  merely  peace  for  the  sake  of  peace! 
Peace!  but  not  peace  at  any  price!  Peace! 
but  peace  that  leaves  no  shame,  that  suffers 
no  disgrace,  that  heaps  no  dark  dishonor  on 
the  nation's  soul! 

The  Terms  of  Peace 

What  then  is  involved  in  that?  There  is  no 
presumption,  to  my  mind  at  least,  in  the  fact 
that  already  we  are  beginning  to  think  of  the 
terms  without  which  Britain  shall  not  put  up 
the  sword.  Not  that  the  end  is  near,  nor  the 
victory  won,  but  it  is  just  at  this  time  when 
the  awful  price  is  being  paid  that  we  must 
shape  within  our  minds  the  unyielding  terms 
by  which  we  hope  to  safeguard  and  guarantee 
our  future  for  many  years  to  come.    Believ- 


176  WORLD  POWER 

ing  as  we  do  that  Germany  was  the  aggressor 
in  this  war ;  that  she  might  have  spoken  at  Vi- 
enna the  word  that  would  have  forbidden  it 
and  that  word  she  refused  to  speak;  that  she 
planned  for  it  and  hastened  it;  that  she  vio- 
lated her  treaty  obligations  in  striking  and  has 
violated  the  instincts  of  a  common  humanity 
in  the  conduct  of  her  campaign — ^believing 
that,  there  are  some  considerations  without 
which  an  honorable  peace  can  never  be  signed. 
What  those  terms  may  be  must  be  left  to  wiser 
and  higher  minds  than  ours,  but  the  common 
sense  and  conscience  of  the  common  people 
is  not  far  astray  when  it  demands  the  follow- 
ing: The  destruction  of  the  power  of  Prus- 
sian militarism  and  the  blotting  out  of  the 
Krupp  works  at  Essen ;  the  dismantling  of  the 
German  navy ;  indemnities  from  Germany  that 
will  fully  repair,  so  far  as  money  can  repair, 
the  losses  to  Belgium  and  France;  the  restora- 
tion of  Alsace-Lorraine  to  the  French  Repub- 
lic ;  the  Kiel  canal  in  the  hands  of  an  interna- 
tional commission ;  the  limitation  of  Germany's 
future  military  power;  a  full  manhood  suf- 
frage for  Germany  to  deliver  her  from  the 
power  of  her  own  military  party;  the  racial 


p:eace  with  honor      177 

boundaries  to  determine  the  boundaries  of 
states;  the  independence  of  Poland;  the  ex- 
clusion of  the  Turk  from  Europe;  the  end 
of  secret  diplomacy  so  that  never  again  shall 
the  declaration  of  war  rest  with  a  few  diplo- 
mats who  deny  to  the  people  any  voice  in  a 
national  step  that  plunges  the  nation  into  a 
welter  of  blood  and  sends  all  the  waves  and  bil- 
lows of  sorrow  over  the  people's  soul. 

An  examination  of  these  terms — reflecting 
as  they  do  the  thought  and  conscience  of  the 
people — reveals  at  least  these  three  conditions 
involved  in  peace  with  honor. 

Based  on  Righteousness 

1.  It  must  be  a  peace  that  is  based  on  right- 
eoiLsness.  True  peace  is  only  reached  where 
justice  is  secured.  "Behold  a  king  shall  reign 
in  righteousness."  It  is  only  when  our  dif- 
ferences are  settled  with  a  due  regard  for 
righteousness  that  we  reach  the  solid  ground 
of  peace.  It  is  for  that  reason  that  the  world 
demands  that  German  militarism  shall  be  de- 
stroyed for  it  is  this  spirit  that  has  sinned 
against  Europe.    It  is  for  the  same  reason  that 


178  WORLD  POWER 

civilization  demands  that  the  weapon  be  taken 
out  of  the  hands  in  which  it  cannot  be  trusted. 
It  is  for  that  reason  that  civilization  demands 
that  the  wanton  damage  done  must  be  repaired. 
Restitution  of  all  wrong  must  be  made  so  far 
as  restitution  can  be  made.  Belgian  homes 
must  be  rebuilt;  Belgian  churches  must  be  re- 
paired ;  Belgian  fields  must  be  restored.  They 
who  have  been  beggared,  whose  substance  has 
been  wasted,  the  labor  of  their  years  swept 
away  in  a  night,  whose  fields  are  a  wilderness 
and  whose  hills  and  valleys  are  an  unbroken 
graveyard — these  must  be  compensated  if  com- 
pensation can  be  found.  That  constitutes  a 
debt  that  it  is  the  duty  of  civilization  to  see 
shall  be  paid  to  the  very  last  farthing. 

That  is  an  instinct  that  is  truly  based  in  the 
conscience  of  the  race.  It  holds  good  through- 
out the  whole  moral  order.  It  applies  with 
equal  force  to  the  final  rightness  of  society  and 
to  the  final  peace  of  the  individual  soul.  There 
is  no  peace  worth  while  that  is  not  based  on 
righteousness.  It  is  right  at  this  point  that 
we  get  a  glimpse  into  the  necessity  of  Calvary. 
How  often  men  think  that  the  Cross  might 
have  been  dispensed  with  in  the  redemption 


PEACE  WITH  HONOR         179 

of  the  world.  They  see  no  reason  why  sin 
could  not  be  forgotten  and  wiped  out,  with- 
out an  atonement  such  as  was  demanded  on  the 
Tree.  But  such  men  forget  that  God  had  to 
do  right  by  the  moral  order  of  the  world.  He 
could  not  meet  sin  in  any  other  way.  For 
here  was  the  problem.  He  must  condemn  the 
sin  and  at  the  same  time  save  the  sinner.  He 
must  uphold  the  ethical  order  of  the  universe 
and  at  the  same  time  save  that  man  whom  the 
ethical  order  condemned.  To  use  Paul's  great 
phrase  he  must  "be  just  and  the  justifier"  of 
the  unjust.  Surely  as  Chalmers  said,  "It  was 
a  problem  fit  for  a  God."  And  that  founda- 
tion of  peace  can  never  change.  It  must  be 
based  on  righteousness.  "There  is  no  peace 
saith  my  God  to  the  wicked."  You  must 
come  to  some  understanding  with  God  about 
your  sin.  It  is  not  merely  a  question  of  gain- 
ing peace.  It  is  a  question  of  gaining  the  true 
peace  that  is  based  on  righteousness.  You 
will  wander  in  the  wilderness  of  a  great  un- 
rest until  you  reach  that  solid  ground  where 
the  soul's  content  is  deep  and  strong  and  abid- 
ing because  it  is  rooted  in  the  fact  that  full 
atonement  has  been  made — that  perfect  atone- 


180  WORLD  POWER 

ment  which  was  made  in  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord. 

Enduring 

2.  It  must  he  a  peace  that  is  enduring.  I 
do  not  mean  to  imply  that  with  the  ending  of 
this  war  we  can  make  a  peace  that  shall  bind 
the  world  for  all  time  to  come.  I  am  well 
aware  that  in  many  quarters  the  conviction  is 
expressed  that  this  is  "a  war  on  war"  and  that 
"this  will  be  the  last  great  war."  I  regret  to 
say  that  I  cannot  cherish  that  hope.  No  doubt 
we  shall  see  a  great  revulsion  of  world  senti- 
ment against  war  with  a  diminution  of  arma- 
ments and  the  war-spirit  rebuked.  But  that 
is  not  necessarily  the  end  of  war.  As  Tenny- 
son asks,  "Who  can  fancy  warless  men?"  But 
we  mean  this  much  at  least,  that  in  the  peace 
that  follows  there  must  be  no  patching  up,  no 
compromise  with  honor,  no  temporizing,  no 
mere  cessation  of  hostilities  for  a  season,  no 
healing  of  the  hurt  of  the  daughter  of  my  peo- 
ple slightly,  saying,  "Peace!  peace!  when  there 
is  no  peace,"  no  such  obscuring  of  the  great 
principles  and  issues  at  stake  as  to  leave  the 
whole  battle  to  be  fought  over  again.    Those 


PEACE  WITH  HONOR         181 

who  know  anything  of  the  recent  events  in 
Europe  know  that  peace  of  a  kind  has  been 
made  many  times  during  the  past  few  years, 
but  it  was  not  the  peace  that  endures.     Such 
a  peace  was  made  in  the  Balkan  crisis,  but  it 
was  no  more  than  a  truce.    Such  a  peace  was 
made  in  the  Morocco  crisis,  but  it  was  no  more 
than  a  bit  of  temporizing.    Such  a  peace  was 
made  in  the  Tripoli  crisis,  but  it  merely  put 
oiF  the  evil  day  unto  the  to-morrow.  The  peace 
that  closed  the  Franco-Prussian  war  was  not 
a  lasting  peace.    It  left  France  smarting  un- 
der humiliation  and  her  borders  still  menaced 
by  the  presence  of  a  watchful  foe.    If  France 
and  Germany  have  not  met  on  the  battle- 
fields of  Europe  for  forty  years  it  was  not 
because  they  were  at  peace.    It  was  an  armed 
neutrality.     It  was  a  breathing  spell  for  a 
worse   conflict.     Writing  in   1897   of   *'The 
Peace,  1871"— the  peace  that  did  not  pacify 
— Elizabeth  Waterhouse  put  it  thus  in  her 
poem: — 

"I  have  made  peace,  thank  God."    O  Emperor  King; 
At  this  thy  word  the  nations  lift  their  eyes. 
Looking  for  One  they  wot  of  to  arise, 
White  robed,  on  happy  wing. 


182  WORLD  POWER 

What  do  they  see?     There  crouches  at  thy  heel 
A  sullen  thing  with  vengeance  in  her  face. 
Writhing  and  wroth,  but  fettered  to  her  place 
By  bonds  of  German  steel. 

As  one  should  tell  us  in  the  dim  thick  night — 
"Behold  the  dawn/'  and  we  looked  forth  to  see 
The  whole  wide  East  grown  golden  silently 
With  joy  of  coming  light. 

And  saw  instead  a  line  of  cloudy  flame 
And  lightning  flashes  leaping  swift  there-through, 
And  heard  the  muffled  thunder-pulse  and  knew 
The  storm,  not  morning,  came. 

So  is  it  when  each  wiry  nerve  to-day 
Of  eager  Europe  thrills  with  that  sweet  word, 
Sweet  yet  so  false,  soon  as  its  sound  is  heard 
Its  promise  dies  away. 

Thy  God  of  Battles,  whom  we  do  not  know. 
Thank  for  the  Rhinelands  and  the  Golden  Fleece, 
But  not  for  such  poor  truce  the  Christ  of  Peace — 
His  Peace  He  gives  not  so. 

So  must  it  ever  be  in  the  nation's  soul  and 
ours.  No  peace  is  worth  the  name  that  does 
not  come  to  stay.  We  shall  never  know  true 
peace  on  any  path  that  merely  patches  up 
the  past  and  temporizes  and  leaves  the  soul's 
great  central  problem  still  untouched.  "Peace 
I  leave  with  you,  My  peace  I  give  unto  you; 


PEACE  WITH  HONOR         183 

not  as  the  world  giveth,  give  I  unto  you.  Let 
not  your  heart  be  troubled,  neither  let  it  be 
afraid."  My  friend,  there  is  a  peace  the  world 
can  never  give  and  cannot  take  away.  There 
is  a  peace  that  endures  through  storm  and  tem- 
pest. There  is  a  peace  that  leaves  you  free  to 
keep  unbroken  fellowship  with  God — a  peace 
that  persists  in  life  and  death,  in  time  and 
eternity,  but  it  is  not  found  elsewhere  than 
in  the  reconciling  love  of  the  Eternal  Son 
of  God. 

Fruitful 

3.  Peace  with  honor  demands  again  that  the 
peace  must  he  fruitful.  Look  you  at  the  peace 
that  Europe  has  maintained  for  the  past  forty 
years.  It  was  a  peace  that  wasted  her  vast  re- 
sources in  many  ways.  The  country  bled  at 
every  pore  even  without  the  curse  of  war.  It 
was  a  peace  in  many  ways  more  devastating 
than  war  because  it  was  long  drawn  out.  Na- 
tions slept  with  their  armor  on,  with  one  eye 
open,  waiting  for  the  footstep  of  the  foe.  The 
tension  and  fear  and  dread  sapped  the  vitals 
of  every  land.  Think  of  the  expenditures  in 
those  forty  years  of  peace.    Contemplate  for 


184.  WORLD  POWER 

a  moment  the  incalculable  millions  wasted  and 
worse  than  wasted  in  the  preparation  for  war. 
The  hard-earned  savings  of  the  poor,  the 
blood-drops  of  labor,  the  brawn  and  brain  of 
men  and  women  and  children,  all  swept  away 
to  feed  the  maw  of  this  monster  whose  hunger 
is  never  satisfied.  In  the  insane  rivalry  of 
armies  and  navies  the  taxes  on  the  peoples 
doubled,  trebled,  were  multiplied  by  ten.  To 
her  enormous  outlay  on  the  navy  Britain  was 
compelled  in  recent  years  to  increase  it  by 
about  fifteen  or  twenty  millions  of  pounds 
sterling  in  each  successive  year.  Think  of 
the  enormous  cost  of  building  up  and  main- 
taining, in  such  a  comparatively  short  time, 
Germany's  army  of  millions  and  adding  to 
that  a  navy  to  rival  Britain  upon  the  seven 
seas.  Contemplate  the  expenditure  to-day. 
Think  of  the  millions  poured  out  by  each  na- 
tion day  after  day.  Think  of  the  British  Par- 
liament in  two  separate  votes — just  two — and 
at  this  early  stage  of  the  war,  authorizing  the 
expenditure  of  £350,000,000,  and  doing  it  with 
the  utmost  ease.  Not  that  I  condemn  that  ac- 
tion— under  the  circumstances  by  all  means 
let  it  be  done.    But  it  is  easy  enough  to  see 


PEACE  WITH  HONOR         185 

that  so  long  as  we  live  under  an  armed  neu- 
trality our  peace  will  rob  us  of  our  substance. 
The  nations  must  be  free  and  secure  to  en- 
joy the  fruits  of  their  labors.  Think  for  a 
moment  of  the  expenditure  of  men.  The  earn- 
ing power  of  men  ceases  when  they  devote 
themselves  to  military  life.  That  is  a  bad 
enough  waste  in  times  of  peace.  But  think 
of  the  expenditure  in  times  of  war.  Bernliardi 
declares  that  war  is  a  biological  necessity  to 
maintain  the  physical  fitness  of  the  race.  But 
it  is  not  so.  It  is  not  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
that  war  secures.  It  is  the  flower  of  the  na- 
tion's manhood  that  is  swept  away  in  war.  It 
is  the  "unfittest"  who  are  left.  It  is  a  fact  of 
history  that  through  the  slaughter  of  France's 
"fittest"  men  physically  Napoleon  lowered 
the  average  stature  of  the  French  nation  by 
two  or  three  inches.  We  want  no  peace  that 
leaves  us  ever  open  to  such  a  scourge  as  that, 
that  wastes  the  men  and  money  of  the  nation 
and  makes  impossible  or  insecure  the  perma- 
nent enjoyment  of  the  fruits  of  labor's  hands. 
Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  noblest  of  our  states- 
men in  every  land,  that  is  not  insane  with  mili- 
tarism, have  protested  against  this  awful  dev- 


186  WORLD  POWER 

astating"  peace  and  pointed  to  the  poor  and 
the  unemployed  and  the  handicapped  and 
aged  for  whom  the  nation  in  her  consequent 
poverty  has  been  unable  to  provide. 

My  friends,  let  us  not  live  in  a  fool's  para- 
dise either  concerning  the  nation's  peace  or 
our  own.  There  is  no  peace  worth  while  that 
is  not  founded  on  righteousness,  that  is  not 
enduring,  that  does  not  secure  to  us  the  fruits 
of  life's  best  and  highest.  For  man  and  na- 
tion ahke  it  is  found  in  the  will  of  God.  We 
cannot  defy  His  will  and  be  at  peace  with 
Him.  We  cannot  defy  His  will  and  carry 
in  our  hearts  a  calm  that  is  unbroken  through 
the  years.  We  cannot  defy  His  will  and  flour- 
ish in  our  souls  in  all  that  makes  life  truly  rich. 
But  in  Christ  we  can  have  the  peace  that  pass- 
eth  all  understanding,  a  peace  that  is  most 
enduring  when  every  earthly  comfort  slips 
away,  a  peace  that  is  most  serene  when  the 
skies  above  are  dark. 

Peace,  perfect  peace,  in  this  dark  world  of  sin? 
The  blood  of  Jesus  whispers  peace  within. 

Peace,  perfect  peace,  by  thronging  duties  pressed? 
To  do  the  will  of  Jesus,  this  is  rest. 


PEACE  WITH  HONOR         187 

Peace,  perfect  peace,  with  sorrows  surging  round? 
On  Jesus'  bosom  nought  but  calm  is  found. 

Peace,  perfect  peace,  with  loved  ones  far  away? 
In  Jesus'  keeping  we  are  safe  and  they. 

Peace,  perfect  peace,  our  future  all  unknown? 
Jesus  we  know,  and  He  is  on  the  throne. 

Peace,  perfect  peace,  death  shadowing  us  and  ours? 
Jesus  hath  vanquished  death  and  all  its  powers. 

It  is  enough;  earth's  troubles  soon  shall  cease. 
And  Jesus  call  us  to  heaven's  perfect  peace. 


X 

TO  A  FINISH:  THE  BROTHERHOOD 
OF   MAN 


X 

TO  A  FINISH:  THE  BROTHERHOOD 
OF   MAN 

Text: — "But  in  the  latter  days  it  shall  come  to 
pass.  .    " — Micah  4:1. 

These  are  the  words  of  an  Old  Testament 
prophet  who  gets  an  inspired  vision  of  the 
golden  age  of  man.  It  is  a  vision  that  is  very 
daring  and  very  wonderful.  He  sees  the 
struggle  of  the  ages  fought  "to  a  finish"  and 
beyond  "in  the  latter  days"  there  emerges  a 
new  humanity,  restored  by  the  hand  of  God 
and  inbreathed  by  the  spirit  of  love.  Here 
is  a  man  who  lifts  his  eyes  beyond  the  mists 
and  conflicts  of  time,  beyond  the  storm  and 
stress  of  society,  the  wars  and  rumors  of  wars 
among  nations,  the  inequalities  and  injustices 
of  the  people,  and  he  sees  the  rising  of  a  new 
kingdom  that  harbors  its  citizens  in  the  security 
and  prosperity  of  righteousness,  justice  and 
peace.    There  the  bitterness  of  strife  is  over, 

191 


192  WORLD  POWER 

the  spirit  of  brotherhood  prevails,  the  greed 
of  the  miser  is  dead,  the  oppression  of  the 
poor  is  ended,  the  clang  of  the  sword  is  si- 
lenced, and  the  golden  age  has  come  to  hu- 
manity for  the  golden  heart  has  come  to  man. 
Althought  our  text  is  taken  from  the  prophecy 
of  Micah  this  is  not  a  vision  that  is  confined 
to  one  prophet  or  patriarch  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment or  the  New.  Isaiah  has  it,  in  almost  the 
same  words ;  Amos  has  it ;  Hosea  has  it ;  Jere- 
miah has  it;  and  every  prophet  and  patriarch 
carries  this  hope  in  his  heart  and  this  message 
on  his  lips.  You  may  go  as  far  back  in  the 
Old  Testament  as  Abraham  and  you  will  find  it 
there  for  even  while  he  labored  among  the 
idolatrous  cities  of  his  own  day,  he  had  a  vision 
of  the  latter  days,  and  "he  looked  for  a  city 
which  hath  foundations  whose  builder  and 
maker  is  God."  You  may  go  as  far  forward 
in  the  New  Testament  as  John  in  the  island 
of  Patmos,  and  you  will  find  it  there  for, 
even  while  he  saw  Rome  seated  on  the  seven 
hills  and  drunk  with  the  blood  of  the  saints, 
he  saw  in  the  latter  days:  "the  holy  city,  the 
new  Jerusalem,  coming  down  from  God  out 
of  Heaven,  prepared  as  a  bride  adorned  for 


TO  A  FINISH  193 

her  husband."  And  ever  in  the  hearts  of  men 
the  dream  of  that  perfect  society  has  been 
cherished  as  a  never-dying  hope.  Twenty- 
three  centuries  ago  Plato  enshrined  it  as  best 
he  could  in  his  "Republic."  Four  centuries 
ago  Sir  Thomas  More  portrayed  it  as  best 
he  could  in  his  "Utopia."  The  poets  have  sung 
of  the  hour  that  would  usher  in  "the  parlia- 
ment of  man,  the  federation  of  the  world," 
and  even  unto  this  day  the  world  is  filled  with 
the  voices  that  declare  and  define  and  announce 
the  "golden  age"  of  man. 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  how  that  hope  has 
revived  itself  in  the  presence  of  this  latest  col- 
lapse of  civilization.  The  forces  of  tyranny 
and  freedom,  of  reaction  and  progress  are 
matched  against  each  other  and  the  conflict 
must  be  fought  "to  a  finish."  And  somehow 
beyond  that  "finish"  we  instinctively  hope  for 
a  new  order  of  things,  furnishing  a  clearer 
illustration  of  the  brotherhood  of  man.  Dis- 
tant as  that  desirable  day  may  be  it  is  not  a 
useless  hope.  It  may  seem  to  be  all  visionary 
but  we  cannot  do  much  without  our  visions. 
The  very  last  man  the  world  can  spare  is  the 
dreamer.    We  are  told  that  this  realization  is 


194  WORLD  POWER 

far  beyond  our  reach.  We  are  reminded  that 
with  all  the  lapse  of  centuries  our  "progress 
halts  on  palsied  feet."  We  are  told  that  with 
all  our  efforts  at  regeneration  society  is  still 

"Wandering  between  two  worlds 
One   dead,  the   other   powerless   to  be  born." 

That  may  be  true  but  at  the  same  time  we 
shall  not  get  far  upon  our  way  unless  our 
"young  men  see  visions  and  our  old  men  dream 
dreams."  Our  work  lies  in  the  nearer  days, 
'tis  true,  but  we  must  keep  our  eyes  on  "the 
latter  days"  as  well.  We  are  crowded  into 
the  valleys  of  action  but  we  must  learn  to 
glance  at  the  mountains  of  hope.  We  must 
see  the  glorious  goal  if  we  are  to  walk  with 
buoyant  step  along  the  way.  We  must  not 
only  see  what  we  are  working  at  but  we  must 
see  what  we  are  working  for.  Like  Michael 
Angelo  we  must  see  the  angel  in  the  marble. 
Like  Jesus  Christ  we  must  discover  the  thing 
that  might  be  in  the  thing  that  is.  And  unless 
we  are  to  be  given  over  to  a  hopeless  pessi- 
mism, unless  we  believe  that  we  are  fighting 
a  losing  game,  unless  we  purpose  to  quit  the 
field  and  surrender  the  spoils  to  the  devil,  we 


TO  A  FINISH  195 

must  take  our  stand  beside  men  like  Micah  and 
say  to  ourselves  and  to  our  brothers:  "The 
prospect  may  look  dark  now,  but  in  the  latter 
days  it  shall  come  to  pass.    .    .    ." 

What  is  it  that  shall  come  to  pass?  What 
is  this  "golden  age"  to  be?  What  is  God's 
Utopia  like?  What  are  its  distinguishing 
characteristics  ? 

The  Supremacy  of  the  Spiritual 

First  of  all  let  it  be  noticed  that  this  "golden 
age"  is  distinguished  by  the  supremacy  of 
the  spiritual.  That  is  its  most  distinguishing 
feature.  "And  in  the  latter  days  it  shall  come 
to  pass  that  the  mountain  of  the  house  of  the 
Lord  shall  be  established  in  the  tops  of  the 
mountains  and  shall  be  exalted  among  the 
hills"  (4:1).  That  is,  the  spiritual  shall  be 
supreme.  It  shall  dominate  everything.  It 
shall  overshadow  everything.  The  spiritual 
values  will  obtain,  the  spiritual  standards  will 
rule.  There  will  be  other  towering  mountains 
but  the  mountain  of  the  house  of  the  Lord  will 
overtop  them  all.  There  will  be  other  com- 
manding interests  but  the  spiritual  wiU  be  the 


196  WORLD  POWER 

most  commanding.  In  a  very  beautiful  and 
suggestive  illustration  Dr.  Jowett  recalls  the 
city  of  Durham  as  an  emblem  of  the  prophet's 
thought.  Through  the  lower  reaches  of  the 
city  flows  the  river  with  the  pleasure  craft  pass- 
ing up  and  down.  Higher  up  on  the  first 
slopes  are  the  shops  and  places  of  trade.  Above 
this  is  the  residential  section  of  the  city  with 
the  homes  of  the  people.  Above  the  homes 
is  the  Castle  Hill  with  its  frowning  front, 
while  on  the  highest  summit  and  commanding 
all,  with  stately  majesty,  rises  the  grand  old 
Cathedral.  It  is  a  fitting  emblem  of  the  great 
interests  of  life.  Pleasure  is  suggested  by  the 
river;  the  highways  of  trade  are  representative 
of  gain;  the  home  is  the  shrine  of  the  family; 
the  castle  is  symbolic  of  power;  and  the  Ca- 
thedral is  significant  of  God.  This  is  the  pic- 
ture that  Micah  has  in  mind.  In  the  latter 
days  the  spiritual  will  be  supreme.  In  God's 
Utopia  it  will  dominate  and  shape  all  our 
pleasures;  it  will  rule  in  all  our  business;  it 
will  command  and  guide  our  home  life ;  it  will 
determine  our  use  of  power.  That  is  the  pic- 
ture of  the  ideal  society.  Let  us  not  deceive 
ourselves.    We  are  not  getting  near  the  golden 


TO  A  FINISH  197 

age  unless  we  are  establishing  the  Lord's  house 
on  the  top  of  the  mountains;  we  are  not  ap- 
proaching the  Utopia  and  never  can  except 
to  that  degree  in  which  we  make  the  spiritual 
the  ruling  factor  in  our  life. 

As  we  look  out  upon  the  present  day  we 
are  not  without  great  reason  for  encourage- 
ment, for  a  new  sense  of  the  spiritual  has  come 
down  upon  us.  I  say  that  in  spite  of  and  in 
the  presence  of  the  clash  and  roar  of  the  pres- 
ent conflict.  The  mighty  upheaval  that  our 
civilization  has  suffered  has  served  to  uncover 
to  us  again  some  of  the  realities  of  life.  We 
are  beginning  to  revise  our  values.  That  trend 
has  been  apparent  for  some  time.  It  has  been 
apparent  in  the  new  philosophy  of  the  hour. 
The  materialistic  philosophy  of  thirty  years 
ago  is  as  dead  as  the  moon.  It  can  never  live 
again.  If  Marie  Corelli  were  to  write  a  novel 
crystallizing  the  underlying  philosophy  of  the 
day  she  would  not  call  it  "The  Mighty  Atom." 
The  mighty  atom  is  exploded.  No  one  be- 
lieves in  the  mighty  atom  as  the  origin  of  any- 
thing. It  is  apparent  in  the  literature  that 
has  been  commanding  the  attention  of  the 
reading  world.    True  it  is  that  there  is  much 


198  WORLD  POWER 

that  is  atheistic  and  sodden  in  its  materialism 
but  no  one  could  fail  to  notice  how  wide  is 
that  range  of  recent  literature  that  contains 
one  long  protest  against  the  materialistic  and 
renews  its  affirmation  of  the  spiritual  element  in 
man.  Even  in  the  face  of  the  wholesale  slaugh- 
ter of  men  on  the  fields  of  Europe  we  assert 
that  we  shall  emerge  from  the  war  with  a  more 
profound  sense  of  the  value  of  human  life. 
Everywhere  there  is  a  new  recognition  of  the 
essential  sacredness  of  personality,  that  every 
human  being  is  created  in  the  image  of  God, 
and  that  there  are  inalienable  human  rights 
that  must  be  kept  inviolate,  because  man  is 
what  he  is — a  spiritual  being. 

The  Results  of  the  Spiritual  Supremacy 

Three  great  and  fruitful  ministries  will  flow 
from  this  supremacy  of  the  spiritual. 

1.  It  will  bring  a  ministry  of  brotherhood 
among  men.  It  will  unite  and  not  divide.  It 
will  draw  men  together  by  magnetic  power.  In 
God's  Utopia  it  is  said  that  "many  nations 
shall  come  and  say,  Come  let  us  go  up  to  the 
mountain  of  the  Lord,  to  the  house  of  the  God 


TO  A  FINISH  199 

of  Jacob,  and  He  will  teach  us  all  His  ways 
and  we  will  walk  in  His  paths"  (4:2).  There 
is  nothing  more  certain  than  that.  The  true 
brotherhood  of  men  will  be  found  in  the  su- 
premacy of  the  spiritual.  No  other  force  is 
sufficiently  and  permanently  cohesive.  Pleas- 
ure is  frequently  divisive,  splitting  society  up 
into  its  cliques  and  sets.  Commerce  with  the 
jealous  protection  of  interests  often  keeps 
the  nations  asunder.  We  have  proof  enough 
before  our  eyes  that  union  is  not  secured  by 
force  of  arms.  It  is  even  possible  that  a  false 
spirituality  wiU  divide  men  and  women  who 
name  the  name  of  Christ.  But  the  spiritual 
dominance  that  Christ  will  bring  will  draw  us 
all  closer  together  in  an  unbroken  brotherhood. 
And  if  we  are  to  be  accounted  as  the  true  fol- 
lowers of  Christ  there  must  be  an  end  of  all 
our  exclusiveness  towards  those  who  name  the 
name  of  Christ,  whatever  tongue  they  speak 
and  in  whatsoever  clime  they  live.  We  must 
learn  to  look  on  men  through  His  eyes ;  to  love 
those  whom  He  loves  whether  they  be  black  or 
red  or  white  or  yellow;  to  obliterate  national 
prejudices  by  the  power  of  His  Divine  love; 
to  kill  aU  hatred  in  our  hearts ;  and  to  think  of 


200  WORLD  POWER 

those  sheep  which  are  not  of  this  fold,  that 
bringing  them  to  our  hearts  there  may  be  one 
fold  as  there  is  one  shepherd. 

2.  It  will  hring  a  ministry  of  construction. 
Where  the  spiritual  is  supreme  men  will  "beat 
their  swords  into  ploughshares,  and  their  spears 
into  pruning-hooks"  (4:3).  The  destructive 
will  be  changed  into  the  constructive.  The 
weapon  that  reaped  nothing  but  a  harvest  of 
death  will  be  transfigured  into  a  weapon  that 
will  reap  the  harvest  of  bread.  It  is  a  common 
hope,  expressed  in  fervent  words,  that  the 
sword  may  soon  be  sheathed  again,  but  that  is 
not  the  Divine  ideal ;  or  that  it  may  be  broken 
and  cast  away  forever,  but  neither  is  this  the 
Divine  plan.  No!  not  sheathed,  nor  broken, 
but  hanmiered  into  a  ploughshare!  No!  not 
cast  away  but  beaten  into  a  pruning-hook !  To 
such  great  ends  are  we  invited  to  direct  the 
forces  of  our  civilization  to-day.  We  are  in- 
vited to  take  the  millions  of  money  poured  out 
in  the  destructive  business  of  warfare  and  not 
only  withdraw  it  from  those  channels  but  pour 
it  into  the  constructive  arts  of  peace.  We  are 
invited  to  take  the  countless  thousands  of  lives 
devoted  to  the  glod  of  Militarism  and  not  only 


TO  A  FINISH  201 

withdraw  them,  but  turn  their  energies  into  the 
fields  of  fruitful  enterprise.  And  even  in  our 
warfare  this  is  the  goal  that  must  be  kept  in 
mind.  "The  Son  of  man  came  not  to  destroy 
men's  lives  but  to  save  them."  There  are  many; 
elements  within  the  German  Empire  that  must 
be  eradicated  for  the  safety  of  the  world,  and 
the  surgeon's  hand  must  not  be  stayed.  But 
even  if  it  were  possible,  the  German  Empire 
must  not  be  destroyed.  Germany  has  a  mis- 
sion for  the  world.  Her  great  energies  and 
immense  resources  of  mind  and  heart  must  be 
pressed  into  the  highest  service  of  Europe. 
The  brain  and  brawn  that  have  been  expend- 
ed in  the  development  of  military  efficiency 
must  not  only  be  recalled  from  that  fiendish 
business  but  must  be  directed  into  the  great 
constructive  ministries  of  civilization.  Freed 
from  the  blight  of  her  false  philosophy,  let  us 
hope  that  her  theologians  and  teachers,  her 
statesmen  and  writers,  her  captains  of  industry 
and  her  masters  of  thought  may  take  their 
place  among  the  greatest  benefactors  of  our 
common  life.  Her  vast  potentialities  so  sadly 
and  so  destructively  gone  astray  must  be  har- 
nessed up  to  the  high  service  for  which  they 


202  WORLD  POWER 

were  designed.  In  other  words  her  sword  must 
be  beaten  into  a  ploughshare  and  her  spear 
into  a  pruning-hook. 

3.  The  supremacy  of  the  spiritual  will  bring 
a  ministry  of  social  justice.  When  the  spirit- 
ual is  supreme  "every  man  shall  sit  under  his 
vine  and  under  his  fig-tree"  (4:4).  There  will 
be  a  little  beauty  for  everybody, — "the  vine 
and  fig-tree";  there  will  be  a  little  ease  for 
everybody,  "they  shall  sit" ;  there  will  be  a  lit- 
tle reward  for  everybody,  "his  vine  and  his  fig- 
tree."  Life  will  not  be  a  dreary  monotony. 
It  will  be  furnished  with  protection  and  leisure 
and  the  fair  division  of  comforts  and  the  due 
reward  of  our  labor.  "And  none  shall  make 
them  afraid."  The  haunting  fear  of  poverty 
and  war  and  famine  will  not  be  found  in  that 
order  of  things.  Who  will  question  for  a  mo- 
ment that  this  is  not  a  faint  outline  of  our  so- 
ciety as  God  designed  it  to  be  and  as  He  shall 
some  day  make  it  to  be?  It  is  toward  that  goal 
that  our  true  spirituality  will  work.  Our 
spirituality  is  not  the  spirituality  of  God  nor 
of  His  Christ  unless  it  drives  us  out  to  feed 
the  hungry,  to  clothe  the  naked,  to  visit  the 
sick,  to  minister  to  the  imprisoned,  and  to 


TO  A  FINISH  203 

sweep  the  whole  man,  body,  soul  and  spirit,  in 
all  his  relationships — social,  domestic,  political, 
personal — into  the  imperial  purpose  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God. 

This,  my  friends,  is  "the  finish"  to  which 
we  look  when  "He  maketh  wars  to  cease  unto 
the  end  of  the  earth."  Only  let  us  remember 
it  shall  not  come  in  the  power  of  a  mere  prin- 
ciple nor  in  the  wisdom  of  men.  It  shall  come 
not  apart  from  a  Divine  Sovereign.  There 
is  no  one  of  our  great  prophets  who  cherishes 
that  hope  apart  from  a  King.  The  key  to  the 
future  is  furnished  by  all  in  the  words  of 
Isaiah:  "Behold  a  King  shall  reign  in  right- 
eousness." It  is  His  presence  alone  that  will 
bring  in  the  "golden  day."  His  day  may  be 
near  or  distant,  we  know  not.  But  this  we 
know,  that  we  can  hasten  the  day  of  His  power, 
we  can  prepare  the  way  of  the  Lord,  we  can 
raise  up  a  highway  for  the  King.  We  can 
level  the  mountains  and  exalt  the  valleys  and 
make  smooth  the  rough  and  make  straight  the 
crooked.  Until,  when  He  shall  stand  within 
our  midst  His  righteousness  shall  cover  the 
earth  as  the  waters  cover  the  face  of  the  deep. 


Date  Due 

Mr  8  -  '3^ 

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1    1012  01026  3137 


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